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Monument Marking 100th Birthday of Shimon Peres Gets Unveiled Outside Childhood Home in Belarus
by Shiryn Ghermezian
Shimon Peres, then president of Israel, at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, in Jordan, May 17, 2009. Photo: Nader Daoud/World Economic Forum.
The Peres Center for Peace and Innovation marked what would’ve been the 100th birthday of its namesake, Israel’s late President Shimon Peres, by unveiling on Wednesday a monument in his honor in his Belarusian hometown of Vishnyeva.
The memorial installed in the yard of Peres’ former family home was made from Belarusian boulder and includes the emblems of Belarus and Israel. It also has a plaque with an inscription explaining Peres’ birthplace and calling him a man who was destined to become famous around the world, Belarus’ official website reported. After the memorial’s unveiling ceremony, attendees drank water from the well by Peres’ childhood home.
Peres, who was born in 1923 as Szymon Perski before changing his name, was raised in Vishnyeva until his family moved in 1934 to then-Mandatory Palestine. His grandfather who remained in Belarus was shot with many other villagers during the Great Patriotic War that took place from June 1941-May 1945. As often as he could, Peres visited Vishnyeva and his former family home, and drank from a local well, according to Belarus’ official website. Peres — who was Israel’s eighth prime minister, ninth president and also a Nobel laureate — died in 2016 at the age of 93.
At the monument’s unveiling ceremony on Wednesday, Minsk Oblast Deputy Governor Ivan Markevich praised Peres, saying he “always defended sovereignty and the interests of people. This politician, just like Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, did a lot for his native country.”
Lukashenko, however, is widely considered an authoritarian strongman and has a history of uttering antisemitic comments.
“The figure of Shimon Peres symbolizes the future in many ways,” added the Chargé d’Affaires of Israel in Belarus, Zvi Mirkin. “This man stood at the origins of the Jewish military industry; he did a lot for the development of Israeli fundamental science. In many ways he showed Israel the way to the future. This [monument] gives the place additional symbolism.”
Peres was not the first leader of Israel to hail from Belarus. The first President of Israel Chaim Weizmann was born in the village of Motal, located in what is now Belarus, and the third President of Israel, Zalman Shazar, was born in Mir in the former Russian Empire, which is now part of Belarus.
