Valerie Harper as Golda Meir in “Golda’s Balcony.” Valerie Harper Good as Golda by Ronald Sklar Even all these decades later, the woman who played one of the most beloved TV characters of all time still arouses intense reactions. “Little old Jewish ladies grab my cheeks and say, ‘sweetheart, darling, they tell me you’re not Jewish. Say it isn’t so,'” says Valerie Harper, who played the insecure, wise-cracking, never-the-bride Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and in her own