Dragging My Family Through Uruguay to Remember Golda Meir
Susan Blumberg-Kason explores how small, forgotten stories reveal the making of a leader.
Editor’s Note: As a biographer, Susan Blumberg-Kason shows how the small, often overlooked details can bring a historical figure to life. In this piece, she recounts her determination to trace a little-known tribute to Golda Meir in Uruguay, connecting it back to her larger project on Golda’s formative years in Milwaukee and Denver. It’s a reminder that history isn’t only shaped by the famous moments we all know, but also by the quieter ones we take the time to find. — Howard Lovy
I’ve always been attracted to obscure stories. The more random, the more intriguing. So when I learned a few years ago that Golda Meir grew up just ninety minutes from where I live, I became obsessed with her Milwaukee childhood and teenage years and wanted to know more. Since early 2023, I’ve been researching not just Golda’s formative years in Milwaukee, but also her two years in Denver after she ran away from home at the age of fifteen to escape her mother’s wrath, another story I hadn’t known until a couple of years ago.
Golda spent her first two decades escaping: from Kyiv to Pinsk to Milwaukee to Denver. On her return to Milwaukee at the age of seventeen—the age between my teenage son and daughter—Golda became involved in socialist politics, with a goal of a Jewish homeland inclusive of both Jews and non-Jews. In her early twenties, she would sail off to British Mandatory Palestine and help build the State of Israel.
These seemingly minor stories about Golda interest me more than the more well-known parts of her life, and I’m convinced her struggles with her mother in Milwaukee shaped who she would become as an adult in Israel. And it’s in this same light that I became obsessed with Golda’s 1959 state visit to Montevideo as Foreign Minister to thank the government of Uruguay for being the first country in South America to recognize the State of Israel.
This particular obsession began when I was booking a recent spring break trip to Buenos Aires. I saw that Montevideo was located just downriver from Buenos Aires and remembered in my research coming across not just Golda’s trip to Uruguay, but also that the government there commemorated her visit by building a Golda Meir Plaza in Montevideo centered around a sculpture by musician and sculptor Hugo Lopez Chirico. Besides New York and Kyiv, I’m not aware of other squares or plazas in the diaspora that are dedicated to Golda, so I knew I couldn’t pass up this chance to see the one in Montevideo. Even though I’m researching Golda’s childhood, I still want to understand how those years shaped the stateswoman she would become.
In late March, I flew from Chicago to Buenos Aires with my husband and two teenage kids. I booked a mid-week day trip to Montevideo, which involved a ferry and long bus ride—each way—but I knew it would be worthwhile.
When the day arrived, we rode into Montevideo around lunchtime and headed straight to a restaurant near the waterfront. As in Buenos Aires, we indulged in steak, and lots of it. After lunch, my husband paid the bill, and I checked my watch, noticing that we had a couple of hours before we needed to head back to the bus station for our return trip.
“Now it’s time to find Golda’s plaza,” I told my family. It was the moment I had been waiting for, although I’m not sure they felt as enthusiastic. My teens turned on Apple Maps and we soon found ourselves at a waterfront esplanade looking out at the South Atlantic Ocean. I love these old malecónes and have walked along similar promenades in Havana, Puerto Rico, Panama City, and Cartagena with the sea on one side and the skyline on the other.
“Let’s walk along the water until we have to turn inland to Golda’s plaza,” I said. My family was happy to hear this. It was such a pleasant day. The sun was shining and the temperatures were mild at around 65°F. We looked ahead at the midrise skyline of Montevideo—probably not too different since Golda visited almost seventy years earlier—and took photos among the ruins of an old lookout station with a rusty cannon. My son announced we should head inland at the next traffic light, about 500 feet ahead.
When we got closer and turned to cross the street, I noticed in the distance the words “Hebraica Macabi” on the side of a building. I had no idea what that meant, but I thought it could be a JCC of sorts. My husband and teens walked ahead while I took a photo of the building.
And then from afar, I saw it. The sculpture dedicated to Golda.
“We’re here!” I called out. My husband and teens looked back as I pointed to a plaza to their left. “That’s it!”
The Golda Meir Plaza looked out to the ocean with the skyline of Montevideo off to the left. The Hebraica Macabi building stood to the right, and I noticed a couple of guards at its front door. Security at Jewish buildings is the same around the world, I thought to myself. I took photos of the plaza and then walked around to the front of the sculpture to find an inscription. There, on the side facing the ocean, was Golda’s name in English and Hebrew, as well as the years she lived, 1898-1978. I wondered if she visited the Hebraica Macabi building if it was around during her 1959 trip to Montevideo. How could she not have? And was this the reason her plaza was built in this location? It was peaceful with few people around.
Peering out to the ocean, I thought it was the perfect spot for Golda’s plaza. I imagined her looking out from this point in Montevideo to the world beyond, a world she hoped would welcome her as Foreign Minister and later as Prime Minister of Israel.
In our remaining hour in Montevideo, we walked inland and took photos of an iconic old square in the center of the city. The architecture was dated back more than one hundred years, so I wondered if Golda also saw these same sights on her visit. My family found something cold to drink at a modern café, a place that definitely wasn’t around in 1959, and found yet another square, a smaller one that was great for people watching. An older man played a guitar while other locals sipped yerba mate through metal straws. We could have sat there for hours, but it was time to order an Uber to the bus terminal.
We boarded the coach and rode off into a sunset of maroon, amber, and golden layers along the horizon. Soon, it became very dark with unlit roads. We seemed to be alone in the countryside for most of the two-and-a-half-hour trip back to the ferry pier in Colonia, Uruguay. Hours later, we were back in Buenos Aires just in time for the typical 11 p.m. dinner.
When we finally returned to our hotel, I sent some photos of Golda’s plaza and the Hebraica Macabi building to my friend Jacqueline across several oceans. We often share quotes and photos of Golda. Jacqueline has been one of my greatest cheerleaders as I research Golda’s formative years in Milwaukee and Denver. I told her that I planned to look up Hebraica Macabi in the morning after I had more rest. It had been a long day. But before I signed off, she sent me a link she found from a quick Google search.
Hebraica Macabi is one of Uruguay’s professional basketball teams and has been around since 1939. I checked the roster and the team has players not just from Uruguay, but also the US and Israel. Golda must have visited the team when she was in Uruguay in 1959. How many other countries have a Jewish basketball team that competes at the professional level?
Even though it was a long day, we will remember our quick trip to Montevideo for a very long time. I know I would have kicked myself for not making this extra effort to learn a little more about Golda, a seemingly small part of her life that doesn’t appear in her autobiography or the biographies I’ve read about her. I also feel it’s the job of a biographer to recover pieces of their subject’s life. Besides, I told myself, if Golda could make the effort to travel to Montevideo to thank the government of Uruguay for being so quick to recognize Israel, I could shlep my family through western Uruguay to see the plaza named in her memory.
Susan Blumberg-Kason is the author of Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China (Post Hill Press), a 2023 Zibby Awards finalist for Best Book for the History Lover. She is also the author of When Friends Come From Afar: The Remarkable Story of Bernie Wong and Chicago’s Chinese American Service League (University of Illinois Press), a 2024 Zibby Awards winner for Best Book for the Knowledge Hunter, and the memoir Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong (Sourcebooks). She is the co-editor of Hong Kong Noir (Akashic Books) and a regular contributor to the Asian Review of Books, Cha: An Asian Literary Review and World Literature Today. Her work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and PopMatters. She lives in suburban Chicago.
Five tiny delights
My first cup of tea every morning
Taking walks with friends in my small town
Reading next to my cat
Visiting a new indie bookshop
Texting with my kids when they're not home
Five tiny Jewish delights
Making matzo ball soup when someone in my family is sick
Finding newly published books with Jewish stories
Driving two hours to buy yeast hamantaschen on Purim
Passover Seders with non-Jewish friends who make the most delicious kosher-for-Passover desserts
Biting into a Montreal bagel
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