In a series of six weekly talks Michael Elkins, who has lived in Israel since 1948 and was BBC Correspondent there for 17 years, plots his own course through the history of modern Israel.
At the age of 70, after a life of public service, Golda Meir was called out of retirement to become Israel's fourth Prime Minister - and for five years led the nation through political crisis and the near catastrophe of the Yom Kippur War.
The text of this programme is in The Listener published on 14 August