One of the founders of the State of Israel and its fourth Prime Minister, Golda Meir was an influential politician who died on 8 December, 1978.

She played a key role in the birthing of Israel, an uncompromising, no-nonsense individual who earned the nickname ‘Iron Lady’ years before Margaret Thatcher inherited it.

The country’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, once described her as “the only man in the Cabinet”, and her remarkable achievements were even brought to Broadway in a hit 2003 one-woman play titled ‘Golda’s Balcony’.

The fact that she remains a much-loved political figure all over the world almost three decades later is a true measure of her steadfast devotion to her land and people.

Born Golda Mabovitz on 3 May, 1898, in Kiev, Russia, she emigrated to America with her family in 1906 where they settled in Wisconsin. There, at the age of 8, she was responsible for overseeing her mother’s grocery store every morning and attended the Fourth Street School.

After a brief spell in Denver, Colorado, she returned to Wisconsin in 1913 and enrolled at North Division High School, where she was an active member of the Zionist youth movement.

Eventually graduating in 1915, Ms Meir went on to formally join the Labour Zionist Organisation and marry Morris Meyerson, with whom she planned to make the so-called ‘aliyah’ (emigration to the Land of Israel).

Along with her elder sister, Sheyna, the couple emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1921. Here, she joined Kibbutz Merhavia and emerged as something of a leader amongst her community. However, by 1924, her husband had grown tired with the kibbutz life and they moved briefly to Tel Aviv, before finally settling in Jerusalem.

In 1928 she was elected Secretary of the Women’s Labour Council of Histadrut. Leaving Meyerson at home in Jerusalem, she subsequently moved back to Tel Aviv with her children to grow increasingly influential within Histadrut, which in itself was starting to look more and more like a powerful shadow government for the soon-to-be State of Israel.

Despite a 1948 crackdown by the British on the Zionist movement in Palestine, she escaped arrest and eventually took charge of the organisation, becoming one of only 24 people and two women to sign the infamous ‘Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel’ that very same year. The following day, she was issued Israel’s first passport and flew to the USA to raise money for the young nation.

From 1949 to 1956 Ms Meir was the Israeli Minister of Labour, after which time she became Foreign Minister under the country’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Later diagnosed with lymphoma, she was forced to retire in 1968, but this did not stop the party choosing her to succeed Levi Eshkol as Prime Minister a year later.

She subsequently came out of retirement at the age of 70 and took office until 1974. During her tenure, she successfully steered Israel through a number of grave situations, including the 1972 Olympic Munich massacre and 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Following the 1973 conflict, tensions within Ms Meir’s governing coalition and criticism about a lack of leadership convinced her to step down as Prime Minister a year later. She later died of cancer on 8 December, 1978, in Jerusalem, aged 80.

A formidable woman, straightforward and honest, but nevertheless one who spent a lifetime in public service at the expense of, amongst other things, her marriage, Ms Meir listed peace and Arab acceptance as two of her ultimate goals.

She was the first female head of state to oversee the development of a nuclear weapons programme.

Her story has been the subject of many fictionalised portrayals over the years, including a television film starring Ingrid Bergman and, more recently, in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster ‘Munich’.

The Fourth Street School she attended back in 1906 is now known as the ‘Golda Meir School’, despite her will requesting that no institutions be named after her.