Golda Meir - labor Zionist leader, diplomat and Israel's fourth Prime Minister - was born Golda Mabovitch in Kiev (Ukraine) in 1898. When she was eight years old, her family immigrated to the United States. Raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she joined a Zionist youth movement, married Morris Myerson, and, in 1921, immigrated to Palestine, joining Kibbutz Merhavia.
In 1924 the Meyersons moved to Jerusalem, and Golda began a series of positions as an official of the Histadrut - General Federation of Labor, and became a member of its "inner circle." Over the next three decades, Golda Meir was active in the Histadrut, first in trade union and welfare programs, then in Zionist labor organization and fund-raising abroad, and later still in political roles. She was appointed chief of the Histadrut's political section - designed to use the Histadrut's growing power to advance Zionist aims such as unrestricted Jewish immigration. When, in 1946, most of the Jewish community's senior leaders were interned by the British authorities, Golda Meir replaced Moshe Sharett as acting head of the political department of the Jewish Agency until the establishment of the state in 1948. From then on she played a part both in internal labor Zionist politics and in diplomatic efforts - including her ultimately unsuccessful secret meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah on the eve of the Arab invasion of Israel in 1948, in an attempt to reach agreement and avoid war.