Background

Shimon Peres was born as Shimon Perski on August 16, 1923, in a small town Vishneva, Ashmiany district of the Vilna Province (now in Valozhin district of the Minsk Region, Belarus) into the family of a forester. In 1933, he moved with his family to Palestine, where his father lived.

His father was an affluent timber merchant and his mother worked as a librarian. He was raised at the house of his grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Meltzer who educated him and taught him Talmud. His grandfather had a great influence on his early life. His father moved to Tel Aviv in 1932 and the family joined his father in 1934.

Education

In 1938 Shimon studied at Ben Shemen agricultural school. He was brought up at an agricultural youth settlement. There he became an active participant of the Zionist movement and in 1946 he joined Mapai (a predecessor of the Israel Labour Party). Also, he got an education at Jewish orthodox school, Balfour Elementary School, and Balfour High School.

Since 1949 to 1952 Peres studied advanced management at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Also, Shimon studied English, philosophy, and economics at The New School in New York City, United States, and New York University, in New York, New York, United States.

Career

For many years Shimon Peres stayed in Kibbutz Geva. He was a co-founder of Kibbutz Alumot. In 1941 he became the Secretary of a ‘Labor Zionist’ youth movement called the ‘Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed’. After coming back to Alumot he became secretary of the Kibbutz and led a life as a shepherd and dairy farmer. The ‘Holocaust’ massacre during the reign of the Nazis claimed the lives of all his relatives living in Wiszniew in 1941. When he was twenty he became one of the twelve elected members of the ‘Working and Learning Youth’ national secretariat of which only two including him were ‘Mapai’ party supporters. He led the movement after three years and went on to win a majority.

Shimon was inducted in the secretariat of ‘Mapai’ by its head David Ben-Gurion. He led an illegal quest encompassing a group of teenagers, an archaeologist, a zoologist and a Palmach scout to the restricted military zone at Negev in 1944. While the idea of the expedition was that of Yitzhak Sadeh, the Palmach head, it was funded by David Ben-Gurion. However, a British officer leading a Bedouin camel patrol arrested the group and interned them in a local jail in Beersheba for two weeks, Shimon Peres had to pay an additional fine.

Shimon and Moshe Dayan were made the youth delegates in the 1946 ‘Mapai’ delegation to the ‘Zionist Congress’. He enlisted in the ‘Haganah’, a Jewish paramilitary organization in 1947 and was delegated with the responsibility of arms purchase and personnel management. He became the Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Defense in 1952 and in 1953 he was appointed Director-General of the Ministry of Defense by the then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. He was the youngest person to serve in the post and held it until 1959. His responsibilities included initiating strategic alliances and purchase of arms.

Through his negotiation, Israel successfully signed up a tri-national agreement with the United Kingdom and France, obtained advanced Dassault Mirage III French jet fighter and set up the ‘Dimona’ nuclear reactor.

Since 1954 he participated in the planning of the 1956 Suez War with the UK and France in the capacity of Director-General of the Ministry of Defense of Israel and visited Paris a few times in this pursuit.

When Israel resolved to go to war against Egypt by 1956, France evolved as the closest partner of Israel in the Middle East. The UK and France strategized with Israel, in its war against Egypt, to achieve their objective of taking control of the Suez Canal through a pre-planned mid-war intervention thus placing it under Anglo-French management. Their plan, however, failed following severe adverse response from USSR and the US.

In 1959 Peres was elected as a member of the Knesset representing ‘Mapai’ party and became the Deputy Defense Minister, a position he held till 1965. In 1965 he left ‘Mapai’ party along with David Ben-Gurion, who formed ‘Rafi’ party. He became secretary-general of the new party. Thereafter, ‘Mapai’, ‘Rafi’ and ‘Ahdut HaAvoda’ merged on January 23, 1968, to form the ’Israeli Labor Party’.

Peres held several ministerial positions including Minister of Immigrant Absorption in 1969, Minister of Transportation and Communications from 1970 to 1974 and Information Minister in 1974. After a brief period he became the Minister of Defense in 1974 and held the post till 1977. He became the leader of the party before the 1977 elections. When the then Prime Minister Rabin resigned following a scandal, Peres served as acting Prime Minister from April 22, 1977, to June 21, 1977.

Shimon was made the chairman of the party following its defeat in the 1977 elections, a post he held till 1992. In 1984 a ‘National Unity Government’ was formed where he became the Prime Minister of Israel for two non-consecutive terms in a rotation arrangement with Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the ‘Likud’ party. He remained Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1986 to 1988 and thereafter Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance till 1990.

The ‘Israeli Labor Party’ made a comeback in the 1992 elections and Peres once again became the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The ‘Treaty of Peace’ with Jordan was signed in October 1994.

Shimon became Prime Minister of Israel for the second time in November 1995 following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on November 4 that year. He held the post till June 18, 1996. The Peres Center for Peace’ that aims to create a foundation of peace between the people of the Middle East and advocates for social and economic development was founded by him in 1996.

Shimon was a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee member at the Knesset from 1996 to 1999. From July 1999 to March 2001 he remained the Minister of Regional Cooperation and thereafter served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the National Unity government till October 2002.

Peres left ’Israeli Labor Party’ and joined a newly formed ‘Kadima’ party on November 30, 2005, to support Ariel Sharon.

Peres became Minister for the Development of the Negev and Galilee and also Vice-Prime Minister in May 2006 after ‘Kadima’ won the elections and Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel. The Knesset elected him as the 9th President of Israel on June 13, 2007. He took charge from July 15, 2007, and held the position till July 24, 2014.

During his life, Shimon was engaged in literary activities. In youth, he wrote poems. He was the author of a series of accounts: From the Diary of a Woman and the books The Next Step (1965), The Next Step (1965), David’s Sling (1970), And Now Tomorrow (1978), From These Men (1979), The New Middle East (1993), For the Future of Israel (1998) and Ben Gurion: A Political Life (2011). Shimon Peres died on 28 September 2016 after suffering a massive stroke two weeks ago.

Achievements

• The political career of Mr. Peres spanned more than six decades. He served in several military and diplomatic posts at the time of the ‘War of Independence’ of Israel. He served twice as prime minister of Israel and as the ninth President of Israel. At the time of his retirement in 2014, he was the world's oldest head of state and was considered the last link to Israel's founding generation.
  
  Peres contributed greatly to the development of the military industry of Israel. He is credited with starting the country's nuclear programme and to the establishment of two nuclear centers in Dimona and Nahal Sarek. He was closely involved with the early creation of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. He went on to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
  
  Mr. Peres was awarded the UNESCO Félix-Houphouët Boigny Peace Prize in 1993 for his contribution to peace in the Middle E. In 1994, a year after the signing of the Oslo Accords, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Israel's then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
  
  In 2005, he was voted the 11th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.
  
  Queen Elizabeth II conferred upon him the honorary ‘Knight Grand Cross’ of the ‘Order of St Michael and St George’ in November 2008. In June 2012 President of United States, Barack Obama conferred upon him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • Battling for Peace: A Memoir

    (Certain to fascinate anyone intrigued about the future of...)

    1995
  • The New Middle East

    (The co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1994 offers a ...)

    1993
  • The Imaginary Voyage

    (In this moving and often astonishing memoir, Nobel Peace ...)

    1999
  • For the Future of Israel

    (This book is Peres' testament to the highest qualities of...)

    1998
  • Ben-Gurion: A Political Life

    (Israel’s current president gives us a dramatic and revela...)

    2011
  • From these men

    (Seven founders of the State of Israel)

    1979
  • David's Sling 1970

Religion

Peres' grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Meltzer had a great impact on his life. In an interview, Peres said: "As a child, I grew up in my grandfather's home… I was educated by him… my grandfather taught me Talmud. It was not as easy as it sounds. My home was not an observant one. My parents were not Orthodox but I was Haredi. At one point, I heard my parents listening to the radio on the Sabbath and I smashed it."

Politics

Peres remained a member of twelve cabinets, being first elected to the Knesset on November 1959. He continuously served the Knesset till 2007 barring a three months break in 2006. In Knesset he represented five different parties at different times namely ‘Rafi’, ‘Israeli Labor Party’, Mapai, ‘Kadima’ and the ‘Alignment’.

Shimon was an early supporter of the West Bank settlers during the 1970s. However, after becoming the leader of his party his stance evolved. He became a strong supporter of peace through economic cooperation.

He remained an adamant supporter of the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority since their inception despite the First Intifada and the al-Aqsa Intifada (Second Intifada). However, Peres supported Ariel Sharon's military policy of operating the Israeli Defense Forces to thwart suicide bombings. Peres was a proponent of Middle East economic integration.

Peres' foreign policy outlook was markedly realist. To placate Turkey, Peres allegedly downplayed the Armenian genocide.

On the issue of the nuclear program of Iran, he supposed existential threat this poses for Israel. Peres is regarded as one of the founders of Israel's technology sector. Through personal meetings with the French government, he established collaboration treaties with France's nuclear industry in 1954. In 1958, he founded the re-organized RAFAEL Armament Development Authority, under the MOD's jurisdiction. From his desk, he would control all aspects of Israel's nuclear program (first as Director-General and after 1959 as Deputy-Minister.

In the 1980s, he is credited with having laid the economic foundations for Israel's start-up economy. Peres also was a proponent of Middle East economic integration.

Views

In later years, Peres developed an obsessive fascination with nanotechnology and brain research. He believed that brain research would be the key to a better and more peaceful future. He launched his own nanotechnology investment fund in 2003, raising $5 million in the first week. In 2016, he founded the 'Israel innovation center' in the Arab neighborhood of Ajami, Jaffa. The center aims to encourage young people from around the world to be inspired by technology.

Quotations: "The most important thing in life is to dare. The most complicated thing in life is to be afraid. The smartest thing in the world is to try to be a moral person. "

"It's better to be controversial for the right reasons than to be popular for the wrong reasons. "

"Optimists and pessimists die the exact same death, but they live very different lives!"

"When you have two alternatives, the first thing you have to do is to look for the third that you didn't think about, that doesn't exist. "

"I read when I get up in the morning when I can during the day and every single evening. Most of my weekends are spent reading great books. Books are my constant companions. If you eat three times a day you'll be fed. But if you read three times a day you'll be wise. "

"In Israel, a land lacking in natural resources, we learned to appreciate our greatest national advantage: our minds. Through creativity and innovation, we transformed barren deserts into flourishing fields and pioneered new frontiers in science and technology. "

"I don't think anybody who carries a rifle carries the future. Because I don't believe that you can really change the world by killing and shooting. You have the change by creating and competing. "

Personality

Shimon was a man of contradictions and upheavals and a man of culture with a wide intellect and deeply embedded humanist values. A politician who for years refused the resolution of conflict through the establishment of a Palestinian state and supported the settlement enterprise then became a statesman who, more than anyone else, symbolised the willingness for compromise with the Palestinians and the striving for peace with them.

Peres was a polyglot, speaking Polish, French, English, Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew, although he never lost his Polish accent when speaking in Hebrew. In his private life, he was a poet and songwriter, writing stanzas during cabinet meetings, with some of his poems later being recorded as songs in albums. As a result of his deep literary interests, he could quote from Hebrew prophets, French literature, and Chinese philosophy with equal ease.

Quotes from others about the person

• "He is sinister and slippery, always the man in a hurry." - Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Interests

• Languages, literature.

Connections

In May 1945 Peres married Sonya Gelman, whom he had met in the Ben Shemen Youth Village, where her father served as a carpentry teacher. The couple married after Sonya finished her military service as a truck driver in the British Army during World War II.

Father:

Yitzhak Perski

Mother:

Sara Perski

Son:

Yoni Peres

Yoni is a veterinarian who established a veterinary hospital in Tel Aviv.

Wife:

Sonya Gelman

Daughter:

Zvia Valdan

Tsvia Walden (October 20, 1946) is an Israeli psycholinguist. She is a professor at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev and previously a senior lecturer at Beit Berl Academic College and Ben-Gurion University. Walden specializes in social constructionism through language, language, and gender, language acquisition, literacy, digital literacy and research of Jewish texts. She is the creator and presenter of a filmed lecture series about language instruction and language acquisition.

Son:

Nehemia (Chemi) Peres

Chemi Peres, is the co-founder and managing general partner of Pitango Venture Capital, the largest venture capital fund in Israel. He’s also the Chairman of the Al-Bawader Investment Fund. He served as a pilot in the Israeli air force for 10 years and graduated from Tel Aviv University.

sibling:

Gershon Perski

aunt:

Lauren (Betty Joan)

Peres is the first cousin of American movie star Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske, 1924).

References

• Shimon Peres: The Biography In this definitive biography, Michael Bar-Zohar takes the full measure of a towering, enigmatic leader.
  2007
• Memorable Quotes and Life Lessons from Shimon Peres
• Phoenix: Shimon Peres and the secret history of Israel
  2008