MIDWEEK MUSINGS WITH GOLDA

This past Wednesday Little Rock had the opportunity to be some of the first audiences to view the movie GOLDA. Helen Mirren did an excellent portrayal of Golda Meir, born in Ukraine known as a Milwaukeean who made aliyah to Israel and became not only its prime minister but the first woman prime minister in the world. She paved the way for women like Indira Gandhi, Isabel Perón, Margaret Thatcher, etc... 

The movie oozes with symbolism as the chain smoker prime minister exhales the continuous clouds of cigarette smoke which turn into the smoke of the battles of the 1973 6-day Yom Kippur War.  We learn of  intel, previous war plans, and the involvement of the US government with Henry Kissinger's integral role.  

The murmuration of birds were sucked down the draft of the chimney into the bowels of the building where she would walk through the hospital morgue for her cancer treatments. Each time there were more bodies and there were more dead birds dotting those hospital floors. After the war her cancerous ridden body gave out 4 years later.

We are given an opportunity to see both the private and public faces of Golda Meir as an individual and as the great stateswoman who had to make some very difficult decisions. Unlike other leaders, she alone took blame for all those Israeli deaths. 

The director stated his purpose was especially to make sure 'younger' and all generations know and remember GOLDA .