Background
Golan was born in Haifa in 1933.
Golan was born in Haifa in 1933.
When she finished her army service, Golan became a member of the kibbutz.
As a youth she was active in Hashomer Hatzair. She did her compulsory army service at the Nahal brigade, and joined a group of soldiers who were sent to help in Kibbutz Lahav, north of Beersheba. After earning a doctorate at Columbia University, she began her professional career.
She returned to Kibbutz Lahav in 1958 following her husband"s death in Ethiopia.
She never remarried. She worked as a journalist in several Israeli media outlets, and in the British Broadcasting Corporation African department, but spent most of her career with Maariv, reporting from African and Arab countries. She was also worked as Maariv reporter in Paris.
The fact that she had dual Israeli-French nationality, and therefore entitled to French passport, helped her enter countries hostile to Israel. She built a network of contacts with influential figures in Africa and in France, and received requests from Israeli official to help maintaining contacts with African leaders, especially following the Six Day War, when many African countries cut their diplomatic relations with Israel.
In 1994 Golan was named the Israeli ambassador to Angola.
She served there from 1995 until 2002. She returned to Angola later on, upon the request of the Angolan president, in order to help establish a taskforce, under the auspices of the United Nations, for the removal of landmines. When she came back to Israel, Golan returned to Kibbutz Lahav and lived there for the rest of her life, though she did not renew her kibbutz membership.
Death
Tamar Golan took her own life 30 March 2011, aged 77, at a hotel in her native Haifa.
In a letter she left, which was made public by the Africa Center she established, she expresses frustration over recent political developments in Africa and the Middle East. She mentions "the downhill deterioration" in Côte d"Ivoire and that Angola was still "corruption stricken".
About the situation in the Middle East she says in her letter "I am tired of feeling like Don Quixote who tries to tilt at the windmills of deteriorating reality in this country".
Quotations: "her body betrayed her, and she could not bear it anymore".