Lessons in Leadership: Dalia Itzik, Speaker of the Knesset, Israel.(; WOMEN & LEADERSHIP)

Byline: Dalia Itzik

Mother is uneducated, but knows everything

I remember the trauma of my early years, after our family arrived in Jerusalem from Iraq in the late 1950s. We were eight children living in a tiny two-room apartment. Four were born in Iraq and four were born in Israel. My father was a drinker. Because of his drinking, he couldn't function well. So my mother ran the family. My mother is an uneducated person. She scarcely knows how to read. But she's a very strong, impressive woman. She's naturally intelligent. She didn't preach to us. She didn't push us. But we knew she knew almost everything. It was intuitive for her. She was the model for my later ambitions and career.

My dream was to be a teacher. If someone told me when I was in my 30s that I was going to be a politician, my answer would have been, "What kind of pill did you take?" Then, in 1989, while serving as a head of the Jerusalem teachers union, I was recruited by Teddy Kollek, the legendary mayor of Jerusalem, to become deputy mayor. Jerusalem is a very difficult city. You have every-thing; it's a microcosm of Israel. But you have to watch your step.

I didn't need much coaxing to move on to party politics, as a member of Knesset from the Labor Party. My roles included minister of the environment, industry and trade, and minister of communication. During the great political shuffle of 2006 I joined the new Kadima Party under the leadership of Ariel Sharon. As the Speaker of the Knesset, during the turbulent days of the Second Lebanon War, I took upon myself the role of preserving national unity across ...