​This is black and white photograph from July 1950 of Golda Meir on the occasion of the opening of the Tel Aviv-Netanya road. Golda is standing on a wooden platform surrounded by a small group of spectators, including several men in army or police uniforms. She is wearing a dress and white, lace-up shoes and carrying a white handbag, and her hair is pulled back in her signature bun. She appears to be speaking to the crowd who have come to celebrate this event. The platform is very small and seems to have been improvised, and the people are all very close to Golda and dressed informally, all of which indicates that this was a modest event.

In 1950, Golda Meir was the minister of labour and a member of Knesset from the ruling Mapai party. She would go on to become prime minister in 1969.

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Golda Meir – Golda Meir was Israel’s fourth prime minister. Born in Kiev in 1898, Golda moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin when she was eight years old. In Milwaukee, she became very active in a Zionist youth movement. She married Morris Myerson in 1921, and the couple moved to Israel to live on Kibbutz Merhavia. Golda was very involved in the Histradrut (the trade union movement) and took various leadership positions in the organisation. In the years leading up to Israel’s independence, Golda began to play a role in diplomacy, culminating in a secret trip, dressed as an Arab, to try to convince King Abdullah of Jordan to refrain from attacking Israel after the state was declared. In June 1948, Golda became Israel’s first ambassador to Russia and was elected to the Knesset for the Mapai party in the first Knesset elections in 1949. In 1956 she became Israel’s foreign minister, and later, after the death of Levi Eshkol in 1969, she became the prime minister and was then re-elected in 1973. The 1973 Yom Kippur War caught Golda Meir’s government and the IDF unprepared. Israel was victorious in the war, but the trauma of the initial shock caused much political unrest, and the Agranat Commission was appointed to investigate the war. The commission’s report did not directly blame Golda for the lack of preparation, but she nevertheless resigned as prime minister in 1974. Golda Meir died on December 8, 1978 and is buried on Mount Herzl.

Hatzalmania (PhotoHouse) – Rudi (Rudolph) Weissenstein (1910–1992) was born in Czechoslovakia, where he studied photography from his father before going to school in Vienna. Weissenstein moved to Israel in 1935 after experiencing anti-Semitism. In Israel, he began working as an independent photographer, taking photographs all over Israel and providing pictures of the pre-state development which were spread all over the world. In 1940, Weissenstein opened the Pri-Or Photo House, later known as Hatzalmania or PhotoHouse, where he built an archive of his work along with documentation about the subjects. After his death in 1992, his wife and, later, his grandson continued to run the Photo House.

Tel Aviv-Jaffa – Founded in 1909 by a small group of Jews on the outskirts of old Jaffa, Tel Aviv is now Israel’s second largest city and the cultural, financial, and technological centre of the country. It is located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the heart of the Gush Dan Metropolitan area. The original founders of Tel Aviv were looking for a healthier environment outside of the crowded city of Jaffa. With the help of the Jewish National Fund, they purchased 12 acres of sand dunes and called their new city Tel Aviv (spring hill). “Tel Aviv” was the name given by Nahum Sokolow to his Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzl’s classic, Altneuland. Meir Dizengoff was the first mayor of Tel Aviv and served for 25 years. In 1917, the Ottoman rulers expelled most of the Jewish community from Tel Aviv. With the end of World War I and the start of British rule the following year, the Jews were invited back to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is sometimes called the “White City” due to the 4000 or more buildings built in the Bauhaus style. The mostly white Bauhaus buildings were built in the 1930s by German Jewish architects who immigrated to pre-state Israel during the British Mandate after the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Tel Aviv has the largest number of Bauhaus buildings of any city in the world. On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was declared in the art museum that was located in Dizengoff House. By 1950, the city of Tel Aviv had grown and expanded, and it was renamed Tel Aviv-Jaffa to reflect the unified city and to preserve the historical name of Jaffa. Tel Aviv is the home of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the financial capital of Israel. It is also the centre of high-tech and start-up companies and a major centre of culture and entertainment, known for its active nightlife and the variety and quality of its restaurants.

Netanya – Netanya is a city located on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, 30 km north of Tel Aviv. The city was founded in 1929 and named in honour of the American-Jewish philanthropist Nathan Straus. During its early years, Netanya struggled due to security issues, but it slowly grew and a kindergarten, school, and shops were opened in 1930. A British architect first proposed plans to turn Netanya into a tourist location, and hotels, beaches, and commercial centres were developed. Today the city is indeed a popular tourist resort, and in 2017 had a population of 214,101, making it the seventh largest city in Israel. The city is home to a large number of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, and, more recently, France.