Former President Shimon Peres passed away at the age of 93

Former President of Israel, Shimon Peres z"l, passed away this evening at the age of 93. The funeral time has not yet been publicized. B'Chadrei Charedim with his life story: A descendant of R' Chaim Volozhiner who was blessed with a long life by the Chofetz Chaim ztz"l

Former president of Israel, Shimon Peres z"l, passed away this evening in Tel HaShomer Hospital at the age of 93. Peres was hospitalized after having a serious stroke. For many hours the doctors fought for his life, yet in the end they were forced to pronounce his death.

Peres is considered the most famous and well know Israeli leader in the world. Media throughout the world reported his death and sent staff to the hospital.

The time of the funeral is not yet known, yet leaders from throughout the world are expected to participate in the official ceremony, for a man who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and was responsible for a long list of national and international accomplishments. In Israel he will be remembered as the Left's leader and as the one who lead the controversial Oslo Accords. Over the last few years, with his election as the 9th president, Peres was awarded with much honor and fondness also from large portions of the Right population in Israel.

Shimon Peres was born in 1923, the 20th of Av 5683, as Szymon Perski in the village Vishnyeva, then in Poland. His father, Yitzchak Perski was a wealthy timber merchant and a descendant of R' Chaim Volozhiner. His mother Sarah, née Meltzer, was a librarian and taught Russian.

Throughout his childhood he was very much impacted by his grandfather from his mother's side, R' Tzvi Hirsh Meltzer, an alumnus of the Volozhiner Yeshiva, who was later killed in the Holocaust. Because of this, when he was four years old, he even went to Radin and was blessed with longevity by the Chofetz Chaim ztz"l. In a speech he gave before the Knesset at his swearing in as the President of Israel, Peres mentioned his grandfather with affection who during the Holocaust was among "The last of the Jews brought to a wooden shul and burnt alive inside it, with their Talleisim on their shoulders". According to Peres, his grandfather's last request was "to forever stay a Jew".

In 1934 Peres came to Israel together with his mother, where they joined his father who had come earlier. In his adolescence his family lived in Tel Aviv. At the age of 15, Peres was accepted to the agricultural school in Ben Shemen . Already from his school years he stood out in his writing and public speaking abilities, and had articles of his printed in the dorm newspaper using the penname "Ben Amotz". After school he worked as a dairy farmer, shepherd, and kibbutz secretary. In 1947, he married Sonya Gelman. In the beginning of the 1940s he was a secretary of the "Noar HaOved" youth movement. In 1947, Levy Eshkol called him in to serve in security positions in the "Haganah", and he was responsible for personnel and arms purchases.

After the establishment of Israeli Army, Peres was moved to the Defense Ministry and was never a soldier. Consequently, Yitzchak Rabin, then the PM, claimed that it was not okay to appoint Peres as the Minister of Defense. In the year 1952, he acted as Deputy Director General of the Defense Ministry. At the end of 1953, on David Ben Gurion's last day as PM, Peres was appointed Director General of the Defense Ministry, being only 30 years old. During the following years, Peres established close relations with France, which led the establishment of the nuclear facility in Dimona.

In the year 1959 Peres was first appointed as an MK as a member of the Mapai party and was elected to the position of Deputy Defense Minister. In the following years, after upheavals in the party, he moved to the Rafi party and remained in the opposition. He later made effort to unify Rafi and Mapai, who joined in the end to become the Avoda party.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!