The world has lost a one-of-a-kind leader with the death of Shimon Peres.
As one of the founders of Israel, Peres helped secure the nation. He built its defense capability, as well as its technological and cultural sectors.
But his most important legacy is as a defender of peace. More than 20 years ago he won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Oslo Accords. It was the first time Israel worked directly with the Palestine Liberation Organization toward a shared peace. Though the peace did not last, Peres’ commitment to it did, even when it wasn’t a popular position.
I am honored to have known such a great man, and even more honored to remember the reason why I know him.
In 1937, when I was a four-year-old kid in the Bronx with not much idea what was happening in the world, my Uncle Joseph was fleeing Europe for Palestine. My parents and most of their siblings had left Europe much earlier, but Joseph stayed as long as he could to finish his studies. He turned down offers from his professors to find him a position at an American university. He wasn’t interested in a fancy title. He wanted to teach children.
That year, along with other German Jewish emigrants, Uncle Joseph helped bring fleeing European Jews to Palestine. There, he helped establish a school, the Ben Shemen Youth Village, which counted as one of its students a young Shimon Peres.
Peres and his peers learned the same things I learned from my Uncle Joseph on his one and only visit to our family in the Bronx: responsibility, civic duty, pride in faith and country. I still remember Uncle Joseph telling me about the dream of Israel, about a safe place for Jewish families and children who had struggled for centuries.
Knowing Peres had been a student of my uncle’s, I watched Peres’ career over the decades with great interest. His commitment to public service was unparalleled, and he deservedly ranked as one of Israel’s most respected leaders.
But Peres was also a kind, generous man. When I visited Israel with my wife Edye and two sons in the 1970s, we were in a terrible hellicopter accident. We crash landed in the desert and our engine exploded. My wife suffered a severe back injury and heavy burns. All we wanted to do was go home. Despite his undoubtedly hectic role as transportation minister at the time, Peres visited us in the hospital and helped us find a way to bring Edye back to the U.S. without further damaging her back.
To this day, I remain grateful for his kindness during a difficult time for my family, and I am proud to have been able to support him as well. Two years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Peres founded the Peres Center for Peace. Edye and I were founding donors, and we had the pleasure of attending its opening. The non-profit organization works to promote lasting peace in the region, and we are honored to be supporters of such important work.
More than anything else, we were blessed to know him, and the world was blessed to have him.
Eli Broad is the founder of The Broad Foundations.
