August 2, 1923

The only politician in Israeli history to hold the positions of both president and prime minister, Shimon Peres is born in Wiszniew, Poland, which is now Vishnyeva, Belarus, to Yitzchak and Sara Perski.

Immigrating to Mandate Palestine in 1934, Peres settles with his family in Tel Aviv and attends Balfour Elementary School. At the age of 14, he studies in the agricultural school Ben Shemen. A founder of Kibbutz Alumot in the Galilee, Peres is elected secretary of the Ha’Noar Ha’oved Ve’ha’lomed Labor Zionist youth movement in 1941 and begins his career as an organizer and integral member of the Labor political movement in Israel.

In 1947, Peres joins the Haganah, where he is put in charge of managing manpower and arms purchases. With the establishment of the Israel Defense Forces in 1948, he serves as the head of naval services during and immediately after the War of Independence. In 1952, after heading the Defense Ministry’s delegation to the United States, he joins the ministry and after a year is appointed its director-general, a position he holds until 1959. He is credited with building a relationship with France around the 1956 Sinai campaign and helping establish Israel’s nuclear program, most of which is the result of French aid and technology.

Peres is elected to the Knesset for the first time in 1959. He serves in the Israeli parliament longer than anyone else and at various times is in the Cabinet as the minister of immigrant absorption, minister of transportation, deputy defense minister, minister of defense, minister of finance and minister of foreign affairs.

In 1977, after the resignation of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he serves as acting prime minister for three months, but Likud and Menachem Begin win the Knesset election. Peres serves as prime minister from 1984 to 1986 and again after Rabin’s assassination from November 1995 until June 1996. In June 2007 he is elected as Israel’s ninth president and holds the post until July 2014.

In 1994, with Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Peres is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Oslo Accords.

Peres dies September 28, 2016.