Shimon Peres
Author: Newsmaker added 28-04-2013, 09:12
Shimon Peres is a famous Israeli politician and the current President of the State of Israel. He was born on August, 2 1923 in village Vishnyeva, Valozhin district, Minsk region, Belarus. His father Yitzhak was a lumber merchant and his mother Sara was a librarian and teacher. Under the influence of his grandfather Zvi Meltzer Shimon started to write poetry since four years.
Peres' family immigrated to Palestine and settled in Tel Aviv in 1934. He attended Balfour Elementary School and High School in Tel Aviv. At the age of 15 he transferred to Ben Shemen agricultural school where he met his future wife Sonya Gelman.
He engaged in politics since the age of 16. Peres was elected the secretary of youth labor movement ”Hanoar Haoved“. In 1946 he was a delegate at the 22nd World Congress of the Zionists.
During the War of Independence (1947-1948) Perez was responsible for arms procurement and the recruitment of soldiers.
In 1952 he was appointed Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Defense and in the following year he became Director-General. At the age of 29 he was the youngest person to hold this position. He was involved in arms purchases and establishing strategic alliances which were important for the State of Israel.
Shimon Peres was first elected to the Knesset in the 1959 as a member of the Mapai party. He got the role of Deputy Defense Minister, which he fulfilled until 1965. Peres left Mapai in 1965 to lead a new party Rafi. Then these two parties united and created a new party Alignment.
During his political career he has hold numerous positions in the government: Deputy Defense Minister (1959-1965), Minister of Immigrant Absorption (1969), Minister of Transportation and Communications (1970-1974), Minister of Information (1974), Defense Minister (1974-1977 ), Prime Minister (1984-1986), Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1986-1988), Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance (1988-1990), Minister for Foreign Affairs (1992-1995), the Acting Prime Minister and Defense Minister (1995-1996), Minister for Regional Cooperation (1992-2001), Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (2001-2002), Deputy Prime Minister (2005).
Shimon Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the peace talks in which he participated as Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Peres was elected the President of the State of Israel by the Knesset on June, 13 2007. 58 of 120 members of the Knesset voted for him in the first round (his opponents got 38 and 21 votes). They backed Peres in the second round and 86 members of the Knesset voted in his favor.
In 2008 Shimon Peres received an honorary knighthood Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George from Queen Elizabeth II in Buckingham Palace in London.
Shimon Peres become the world's oldest head of state in 2013.
He hasn't forgotten about Belarus. He always called Belarus his small homeland. Peres has visited village Vishnyeva twice and he hopes to visit it for the third time.
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