From Paula to Sara

Although Israel's "first ladies" have no official status, each of them shaped her status according to her personality, opinions and character. In late 1963, when David Ben-Gurion was in conflict with his party, a last attempt was made to prevent his downfall with an official journey to the five socialist Scandinavian countries, which were guaranteed to receive him with open arms. And that's what happened. Our ambassador to Copenhagen and his wife invited B-G and his wife Paula to their luxurious home for a meeting with the press. The journalists asked questions, B-G replied and Paula napped.

When B-G had finished, waiters appeared with drinks and cocktail sandwiches. Paula, who woke up and saw the waiters and the luxurious home, raised her voice: "What's this here? For this you made Ben-Gurion [that's what she called him] leave the official guesthouse? Who is paying for all this, Rockefeller? In Israel there are people who have nothing to eat and you're serving caviar?"

The ambassador's wife was ready to faint and the military secretary, Col. Haim Ben David, in dress uniform, whispered in her ear: "Paula, the place is full of journalists." Just as angry as before, she turned to him and raised her voice: "And what are you doing here? Go home to the army!" That was Paula, straight to the point, defending her husband to her last breath. During a visit by Dag Hammarskjold, the bachelor UN secretary general who was not very friendly, Paula said: "The time has come for you to get married and make less trouble for us."

Paula was the wife who used to stand behind the curtain in the Knesset. As opposed to B-G, who hated Menachem Begin, she liked him. And Begin, like a Polish gentleman, would always kiss her hand. Paula would often say to B-G when they were with the family, "Why are you persecuting him? He's so nice." But she was not involved in politics, she was in charge of the family budget. B-G kept a comb and small mirror in his pocket, but not a wallet. She would fiercely protect his rest time, and if party hacks arrived while he was napping, she would chase them out and scold them.

Tzipora Sharett would stay out of the limelight, but in Sharett's diaries she is mentioned often, which proves that she served as a listening ear to him, and he respected her opinion. Miriam Eshkol, a Knesset librarian whom the widower Levi Eshkol married, was both involved and vocal. After the Six-Day War, Mariuma, as Eshkol called her, claimed that a putsch had been carried out against Eshkol when he was ousted from the defense portfolio. She kept a diary that she does not intend to publish, but she is still loyal and interprets him for biography writers.

Leah suited Yitzhak Rabin like a glove. He was the handsome Palmachnik with the basso profundo voice, and she was the girl with "the most beautiful legs in Hashomer Hatzair" - the Zionist youth movement. On the way to the top they complemented each other. He was shy by nature, and when he became prime minister she pushed him into high society. Neither of them - he with a glass of whisky in hand, she dressed in the latest fashion - missed a single event to which they were invited. Leah did not intervene in politics but was aware of her husband's interests. And although they often hosted important people, they did not forget their old friends. Rabin resigned from the premiership in 1977, when his wife was tried because of an unexplained $20,000 that was discovered in a bank in Washington, where Rabin had served as Israel's ambassador.

From the time he returned to power, Leah was always there for him, and after his assassination she made sure to perpetuate his name on every site she could. Loyal to the end, Leah loudly declared her anger at this writer because of a critical article about her exaggerated efforts to substitute Rabin for old and important names.

In his emotional speech on the night of the "upheaval," when he won the election after seven failures, Begin thanked his wife Aliza for "following me in the desert, in an unsown land." Aliza was not involved in politics, but she was with him all the way, more as a Siamese twin than a wife. Even in the underground, even during the long seven terms in the opposition. He burst out crying in Los Angeles when he was informed of her death. "Before my trip the doctor promised me that her life was not in danger," he said, crying bitterly.

Sara Netanyahu is very pedantic about cleanliness, often appears at her husband's side, whether or not it is necessary, and always smiles. She is so jealous that once when Limor Livnat had an appointment with Netanyahu, they wrote a man's name in the planning book in the Prime Minister's Office in case Sara took a peek. And she used to peek.

Sara is a woman with extreme political awareness. She brought from her childhood home a belief in Greater Israel and is involved in appointments in the PMO. Under other circumstances she could have been an MK instead of harassing her maid. As Claire Booth Luce - who came from the family that founded the Time Magazine group and served as a U.S. ambassador to Italy - once said: "If God had wanted us to think with our wombs, why did He give us a brain?" Sara's problem is not her brain, but her character.