NEW YORK (WJC)–Following is the text of a speech delivered by Ron Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, in honor of Israel’s former president, Shimon Peres, receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Times of Israel.
Shimon Peres
Good evening… We all know the exceptional list of accolades that have been said about our guest of honor tonight. If I went through all of them, we would be here until sunrise. Yes, he was there at the dawn of the Jewish State and there are few government jobs that Shimon Peres has not held (many of them twice).And oh, the awards: A Presiential Medal of Freedom from the U.S. as well as a Congressional Gold Medal, a Knighthood from the Queen in Buckingham Palace, and, of course, there is a Nobel Peace Prize.
As president of the World Jewish Congress, I save the most important medal for last…the World Jewish Congress’s Theodor Herzl Award, which was given to Shimon Peres in 2012. But there are some things about Shimon Peres that you may not know.
More than 30 years ago, when I went to Shimon Peres’s office for the first time, I noticed a black and white photo. It showed David Ben Gurion, the Founding Father of the new Jewish State and standing next to him was Shimon Peres. The picture is from the early 50s: the Old Man and the Young Man.
In this one picture, I saw the State of Israel. Two Polish-born Jews who understood that the future of the Jewish people lay not in Europe, where Jews were never really accepted as anything more than guests. No, these two brilliant leaders saw the future of the Jewish people in their own land, a land where they would not be guests, a land that was and is eternally theirs.
But here is the key: these two men understood that Jews would have to work every single day to protect that land. No one man alive has worked harder for the Jewish State of Israel than Shimon Peres. I have watched this man stand up and defend his country in the most articulate and diplomatic fashion, whether it was in a crowd of protesters at NYU, or with the President of Turkey in an international forum, or on a cold night in Poland when we were there to mark the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The fact that Israel has not just survived over the past 67 years, but thrived, is due, in no small part, to Shimon Peres. Whether it was finding weapons to defend the State in the 1950s or creating diplomatic alliances that were crucial to Israel’s standing in the world or coming up with some of the most innovative technologies…
Shimon Peres has never stopped working; even today, he is pushing the ingenious idea of combining of the Red Sea and the Dead Sea in order to produce a huge amount of clean power.
And this is important…at a time of increasing anti-Semitism throughout the Middle East and now even in Europe, there is one man that has the unique ability and the position in the world, to pursue peace.
That man is Shimon Peres.
One thing is clear: the enormous talent, ingenuity and dedication of Israel can be seen in him.
Finally, I want to share one personal story:
When my grandson came to Israel for his Bar Mitzvah, there was only one person he wanted to meet – Shimon Peres. And we had a photo taken of the two of them. In his bedroom, there are pictures of every sports star you can imagine. (There may even be a picture of Bar Rafaeli). But there is one picture that stands out: my grandson and the President of Israel, Shimon Peres. Once again, the Young Man and the Old Man.
But my grandson and all of us should have half the energy, half the brilliance and half the stamina of this man who is 91, but continues to work and achieve like he is 21.
Before I ask Shimon Peres to come up to accept the Lifetime Leadership Award from the Times of Israel, we have a short film about this incredible man.
(film shown)
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my greatest honor to give you, Shimon Peres…
