Tens of thousands say last goodbyes to Peres, who ‘loved every single one’

In the early 1970s, Rivka Nahum became Israel’s first mailwoman, earning her a meeting with Shimon Peres, who then served as minister of postal services in Golda Meir’s government.

Standing in line outside the Knesset to pay her last respects to Peres, Nahum recalled her encounter with the Israeli leader, just one of the hundreds of stories of people whose lives were touched by Peres.

On Thursday, Nahum joined thousands of Israelis and foreigners who lined up at the Knesset to pay her respects to Israel’s late ninth president. By late evening, the number who had filed past his coffin topped 40,000.

“He was very nice, he said I deserved kudos,” Nahum, of Ma’aleh Adumim, recalled of her meeting with Peres nearly four decades ago, while standing in line to see Peres’s coffin. Nahum never voted for Peres — “I’m not a leftist,” she declared — but started to appreciate him in his later years, especially after he left the political fray and became Israel’s head of state, a largely ceremonial position.

Peres’s death at the age of 93 Wednesday sent shockwaves throughout Israel, where he was beloved as a politician who became the country’s most vocal peace activist, the last link to the generation that founded the country and built it into a military power and technology hub.

On Thursday, his body lay in state outside the Israeli parliament as tens of thousands of Israelis, foreigners and dignitaries from around the world lined up to pay their respects to the ninth president.

“When he became president, he connected to all the people of Israel. He loved every single one. He knew how to smile and make people feel good. Every citizen was important to him,” Nahum said.

Pastor Laurindo Shalom-Haverimbril, the president of a Christian Israel-Brazil friendship group, recalled meeting the late president in his home town of Brasilia in 2010. “President Shimon Peres longed for peace. He conquered our hearts,” he said, dressed in yellow and green and waving a Brazilian flag. “Brazil loves Israel,” he added in broken Hebrew.

Elementary school classes, army platoons, former colleagues and people who have never met Peres made their way to the Knesset to part from Israel’s elder statesman. Many snapped selfies in front of his coffin, some read psalms.

Abraham Zamani, a 74-year Iranian-born Jerusalemite with a knitted skullcap, blew kisses at the coffin. “I respected him since 1952, when I was little kid,” he said. There’s a photo of us together at the Lion’s Gate right after the Six Day War. Too bad I didn’t bring it.”

Eti, 65, who worked for the Labor party, which Peres headed in 1977–1992, 1992–1995 and 2003–2005, did not make that mistake, proudly pulling out her cellphone and showing a scan of a photo of her and her family with Peres. “When [former prime minister Yitzhak] Rabin died it was different,” she said, looking around the plaza in front of the Knesset. “They put up his casket closer to the gate. Rabin’s death was a tragedy. It was a shock; he was murdered. Peres’s death is also a shock — he’s the last of Israel’s founding fathers, and now he’s gone.”

Avi, an Orthodox student in his 20s originally from New York, came by himself. “I want to show respect, I think that’s a nice thing to do,” he said, adding that he wasn’t sure whether he would’ve voted for Peres. “He did a lot of controversial stuff, but also many things that were in the Israeli consensus.”

The Cohen family came all the way from Netanya to the capital, about a 90-minute drive, to say their goodbyes to Peres, although they had never met him.

“We’re ordinary Israelis, rank and file,” said Avi Cohen, who works in finance and took a day off to come to the Knesset. “We’re here to give our son a civics lesson,” added his wife Linda, a Hebrew and Arabic teacher.

The Cohens are staunch leftists, usually voting for the Labor or Meretz parties. When Peres, toward the end of his political career, abandoned Labor and joined the centrist Kadima party, he lost the Cohens’ support, they recalled.

“But he’s above politics. He’s an international figure,” Avi Cohen said, minutes before former US president Bill Clinton arrived and stood exactly where they had been waiting. “Politics is just a means to achieve a goal. But when he became president he transcended politics and dedicated his life to his principal purpose: creating a new Middle East. Too bad he didn’t achieve his goal.”

“He did achieve his goal,” his wife interrupted him. “Just look around,” she said, pointing to the many ordinary people, MKs, journalists and senior dignitaries from abroad crowding the Knesset plaza to pay tribute to the late statesman.