Posted By James Besser
This my 25th GA (General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities), and I find myself thinking back on some of the highlights of this annual event, the most influential in the organized Jewish community.
I remember a thrilling encounter between Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and then-Brandeis University professor Leonard Fein that touched on religious and secular influences, at my first GA, in Chicago in 1974; the "off the record" pronouncement made by Arye Dulzin of the Jewish Agency to thousands of delegates in Montreal in 1979 that Ethiopian Jews were about to be rescued; and marching in solidarity with thousands of delegates through the streets of Jerusalem in 2003.
But the most dramatic GA scene I've witnessed took place in Dallas in 1977, late on Shabbat afternoon, when a frail Golda Meir entered a room full of several thousand delegates and was greeted by a spontaneous and spirited singing of "Am Yisrael Chai."
In contrast to the carefully staged and planned presentations of the GA now, when plenaries are scripted to the minute, the beloved former Israeli prime minister delivered an impromptu speech, recalling her career in the service of the Jewish people and, particularly, her connections to the American Jewish community.
We knew she was ill and many in the crowd sensed that she was delivering her farewell address to Diaspora Jewry.
Golda spoke in her raspy voice, a little softer than usual, about how David Ben-Gurion chose her to come to America to raise desperately needed funds for the war effort in 1948, in large part because, having been born in Milwaukee, she spoke English better than other leading members of the new government. Her effort was a huge success, catapulting her career that took her to Israel's highest political office.
Only three years before the GA, Golda had resigned in the wake of a commission report faulting her government for the thousands of Israeli casualties suffered in the Yom Kippur War. Today she is reviled by many in Israel for her role leading up to the war, but for those few moments, the bond between several thousand American Jews and this small elderly woman reminiscing about her career was powerful and palpable, and there was real love in the room.
Then she thanked us for our support, waved good-bye to thunderous applause, and was soon back in Israel, where she died two months later of cancer.