A Call at 4 AM: Thirteen Prime Ministers and the Crucial Decisions that Shaped Israeli Politics

by Amit Segal

It was 4:00 a.m., and Golda Meir could not get back to sleep. “It was the same nightmare, repeating itself,” Israel’s fourth prime minister told a close friend in the morning.1

Golda Meir was a sharp-tongued and active politician, especially in the field of social policy. Until her dying day, she never forgot the darkest days of her life, as a young, penniless woman in Jerusalem. She had to wash the dirty laundry of all the children at her local kindergarten just so that her daughter could go there too. The experience remained etched in her memory, all the way to the top.