The Creation of Golda Meir

On October 7, 2023, I received a text from a theatre company asking if I had an interest in writing a play about former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meier. The request came early in the day and before I had any real knowledge of the brutalities that were being inflicted on the people of Israel as the result of a brutal invasion by Hamas from the Gaza Strip into the Jewish State. In discussing the project via text that morning, one of my last texts at the time reads:

One more thing … Israel was invaded last night (United States time, where I live) by Hamas and the Prime Minister declared his country was at war a few hours ago.

The horrific atrocities inflicted on innocent Israelis weren’t yet known by me. However, shortly the terrors suffered by people of all ages and from all walks of life in Israeli kibbutzim along the border with Gaza Strip would be known by people across that nation and around the world.

I was shocked, stunned, saddened – horrified. I spent a good part of the remainder of the day touching base with Jewish family members and friends to let them know they were in my thoughts. I intuitively understood that virtually all Jewish people in my own life would have connections with people in Israel directly impacted by this incomprehensible assault on humanity. 

There are times when tragedies occur and it’s hard to figure out what to do in the immediate aftermath. In the case of the Hamas slaughter of innocents in Israel, that night I sat down and began writing this play about one of Israel’s founders and its only woman Prime Minister to date, Golda Meir. 

Some days after I started writing, there were some course changes in regard to how, when, and whether this play would be produced. I set the script aside for a bit. Eventually, I thought of two quotes about coincidence:

Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. 

– Albert Einstein

Any coincidence is worth noticing. You can throw it away later if it is only a coincidence. 

– Agatha Christie

I eventually concluded that a power well beyond my small life in the middle of the United States wanted me to put together the words in this script. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Almighty quietly called me to this task. I did not throw away what I finally concluded was more than mere coincidence.

I continued writing. I came to believe the story of Golda Meir in this play was not only one that needed to be told but had to be shared now. 

And beyond writing I began the battle to see this script to production, seeking support on various fronts from creative talent to financial backers to prayers of support. It’s one thing to get words to paper. It’s something entirely different to fight to get those words to stage. 

As is the case with so many things written about Golda Meir through the years, the title oftentimes ends up “Golda” or something bearing her name and an adjective. Indeed, the working title of this project was “Golda” until I came upon this quote from the modern world’s first Iron Lady:

We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel. 

From the quotation, this play was christened When Strawberries Bloom: The Creation of Golda Meier. 

Existing work about the Prime Minister tends to fall into a couple of broad categories: Highly laudatory or tremendously critical. As I have found with so many historical figures I’ve written about, Meir’s life was not a Capote Ball in black or in white. Her legacy is far more complex.

In the end, I hope this play becomes a strawberry blossom that causes at least a few people to stop, then take notice and balanced account of a woman called Golda.