Author recounts Golda Meir's career as a leader, which began as a schoolgirl in Milwaukee

A new biography reminds readers that Golda Meir forged organizing skills as a girl in Milwaukee that would later lead her to become prime minister of Israel.

Francine Klagsbrun's "Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel" (Schocken) recounts Meir's girlhood years here as eventful for both Golda and her family.

Klagbrun will speak about Meir and her book at 7 p.m. Nov. 30 at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, 6255 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Whitefish Bay.

Born in 1898 in Kiev, then part of the Russian empire, Golda Mabovitch emigrated with her mother and sisters in 1906, in part to escape anti-Jewish violence in Russia. Processed through Quebec rather than Ellis Island, the immigrants joined Golda's father Moshe in Milwaukee, where he was already working as a carpenter for Milwaukee Railroad. 

Moshe had been routed here by the Industrial Removal Office, which connected recent Jewish immigrants with jobs in the United States. 

"Milwaukee served as a fine example of American freedom for a young girl born into the tyranny of Russia," Klagsbrun writes. 

Golda, the middle of three daughters, attended Milwaukee's Fourth Street School, which now bears her name, from 1906-'12. Sometimes she argued with her mother about this: Mother wanted her to mind the small family grocery store while she went to wholesale markets, but Golda loved school and excelled there.

During those years, she led her first campaign as a community activist. At that time, local public school students' families had to buy their textbooks, with many children counting on buying used books. After the Milwaukee School Board voted to replace 11 textbooks, Klagsbrun reports, many students, including Russian Jewish immigrants, asked for assistance because they couldn't afford to buy new ones.

With help from her friend Regina Hamburger, Golda organized the American Young Sisters' Society to raise money to buy textbooks for needy children. At age 11, she spoke at a successful public event for the cause. Golda and the group were featured in a Milwaukee Journal article in 1909. 

Golda attended North Division High School, but fled to Denver for refuge with her older sister after a conflict with her mother, who wanted Golda to go to secretarial school and to marry a much older man in the neighborhood. At her father's urging, she later returned to Milwaukee and graduated from North Division. In October 1916, she started college at Wisconsin State Normal School, a predecessor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, with a future as a teacher in mind. (UWM later named its library in her honor.) 

She became a passionate supporter of the Zionist cause — to the point when, denied permission to speak in a forum during Shavuot service at a local synagogue, she stood on a bench outside and spoke to people as they left. 

During her youthful Milwaukee years, she worked for some of the city's signature institutions, including the famed Schuster's department store and, in two separate stints, the Milwaukee Public Library. In a historical article posted by MPL, staff librarian Ruth Shapiro recalled Golda giving a fascinating talk at a staff meeting about growing up in the Russian empire. 

In 1917, Golda married Morris Myerson, whom she had met in Denver. They moved to Palestine in 1921.

She served as Israel's prime minister from 1969 to 1974, a challenging period that included both the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

In 1969, Golda returned to her former school in Milwaukee, now named in her honor and attended then largely by African-American students.

"What I most remember about this is the electricity over the fact that she had on this suit with a zigzag pattern, the zebra suit, there was a lot of commentary about that," said local theater artist Sheri Williams Pannell, who was 9 during that visit, in a 2013 interview. Williams Pannell was directing a First Stage play by Jonathan Gillard Daly about Meir's years as a girl here. 

RELATED:Play reconnects Golda Meir to Milwaukee roots

Williams Pannell noted that Meir's 1969 visit here came during a rough period in the relationship between African-Americans and Jewish Americans. 

"When Golda Meir came, it was almost as if she gave us an infusion of love," she said. "It was a moment for us to come together."