Plot summary
The story alternates between Goodkind's telling his family history and early years (specifically, his first 26 years (1915–1941)) and his account of current events in 1973, leading up to the Yom Kippur War. The tales of Goodkind's early years describe his family – his mother and father, his sister, his mother's father and father's mother, his mother's half sister, and a tribe of more distant uncles, aunts and cousins (the 'Mishpokha', Yiddish for 'family'). After college, Goodkind works for Harry Goldhandler, a gag writer for radio comedies (very loosely based on David Freedman), and has a romance with showgirl Bobbie Webb. The tales of his present day in 1973 are centered on his wife, his daughter, their friends, and Peter Quat, a college friend who also worked for Goldhandler, and who had become a famous novelist for his sexually explicit characters and unflattering depictions of American Jewish life. Quat's books seem similar to the work of Philip Roth, but Roth did not attend Columbia nor work for Freedman.
As a young man, Goodkind becomes less observant, but his adult self has returned to the Orthodox practices of his father and grandfather. Goodkind as a child and young man is embarrassed by his first name Israel, mockingly shortened by several other characters to Izzy. In the last scene of the novel when Goodkind returns to the U.S. after the Yom Kippur War, he tells an El Al flight attendant to call him Israel.
Golda Meir was an Israeli politician who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She was Israel's first and only female head of government and the first female head of government in the Middle East.
Simcha Dinitz was an Israeli statesman and politician. He served as Director General of the Prime Minister's office and political advisor to Prime Minister Golda Meir from 1969 to 1973, before becoming the Israeli Ambassador to the United States from 1973 to 1979. He had an overlapping appointment as the Non resident Ambassador to the Bahamas During the 1980s he was elected to the Knesset.
The Agranat Commission was a National Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate failings in the Israel Defense Forces in the prelude to the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was found unprepared for the Egyptian attack against the Bar Lev Line and a simultaneous attack by Syria in the Golan—the first phase in a war in which 2,812 Israeli soldiers were killed.
Sword of Gideon is a 1986 Canadian television film about Mossad agents hunting down alleged terrorists, associated with the PLO. By means of Extrajudicial killings, Mossad agents retaliate for the 1972 Munich massacre. It was first shown on the CTV Television Network in Canada as a four-hour miniseries and later on HBO in the United States. Directed by Michael Anderson and written by Chris Bryant, the film stars Steven Bauer and Michael York. The film is based on the book Vengeance by George Jonas, an account of the incident which has been criticized by some intelligence personnel as fictional, though because of its covert nature is difficult to prove or disprove. In some countries the book was titled Vengeance: Sword of Gideon, from which the movie title is drawn. The story was retold in the 2005 film Munich by Steven Spielberg.
Shimon Agranat was an Israeli jurist and the third President of the Supreme Court of Israel, from 1965 until 1976.
The Rogers Plan was a framework proposed by United States Secretary of State William P. Rogers to achieve an end to belligerence in the Arab–Israeli conflict following the Six-Day War and the continuing War of Attrition.
Legislative elections were held in Israel on 31 December 1973. Voter turnout was 78.6%. The election was postponed for two months because of the Yom Kippur War.
Golda's Balcony is a play by William Gibson.
The Glory (1994) is the sequel to The Hope written by American author Herman Wouk.
Haim Sabato is an Israeli rabbi and author.
My Life is the autobiography of the first female Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir. The book was first published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson with the title A Land of our own and later by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1975. The first German translation was published 1973 by the Scherz Verlag in Bern.
The sixteenth government of Israel was formed by Golda Meir on 10 March 1974, following the December 1973 elections. However, following Meir's resignation as Prime Minister on 11 April, it only remained in office until 3 June, and at just 85 days, was the shortest-lived government in Israeli political history.
Events in the year 1973 in Israel.
The Schoenau ultimatum was a hostage-taking incident in Marchegg, Austria by the Palestinian militant group As-Sa'iqa in 1973. At the time Vienna was a transit point for Russian Jews, the largest population of Jews remaining in Europe. The Schoenau ultimatum focused attention away from Egyptian and Syrian military build-up and their planned attack that would come to be known as the Yom Kippur War.
Uri Bar-Joseph is professor emeritus in the Department for International Relations of The School for Political Science at Haifa University. He specializes in national security, intelligence studies, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers is a 2013 American documentary film about former Israeli prime ministers, directed by Richard Trank. It was based on the book The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership written by Yehuda Avner, a former Israeli diplomat and speechwriter to Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres. Moriah Films, a division of Simon Wiesenthal Center produced it.
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership is a 2010 book written by Yehuda Avner and published by Toby Press. It documented events related to 4 Israeli prime ministers—Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin. It was first published in Israel on 15 March 2010 and a wider publication was done on 1 September 2010. The book was well received by critics and was one of the finalists for the 2010 National Jewish Book Awards. In 2013, Moriah Films, the film division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center produced a two-part documentary based on the book that features Avner as the narrator, and Hollywood actors as the voices of Israel's prime ministers.
Golda's Balcony is a 2019 American biographical film based on the 2003 play Golda's Balcony, written by William Gibson. The film captures a solo performance by Tovah Feldshuh — who plays Golda Meir and numerous other characters in the course of the film's eighty-six minutes — during a multi-camera, video recording in front of a live audience in May 2003. The multi-camera video recording was edited into a motion picture in early 2019, after which it went on to become an Official Selection at numerous film festivals in North America. As of 2020, the film had been selected for 75 Film Festivals in North and South American, as well as Europe and Asia and, in addition, had won twenty Audience Choice Awards as "Best Feature" among the festivals to which it had been invited.
Golda is a 2023 biographical drama film directed by Guy Nattiv and written by Nicholas Martin. The film depicts the life of Golda Meir, the 4th Prime Minister of Israel, particularly during the Yom Kippur War. It stars Helen Mirren, Camille Cottin and Liev Schreiber.
Lou Kaddar was an Israeli political staffer, diplomat, interpreter, and social worker. From 1948 to 1978, she served as Golda Meir's private secretary and confidante. Kaddar worked for Meir when she was Minister of Labor, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Prime Minister of Israel.
