Larger than life: Shimon Peres, a legacy in pictures

Belarus, Kibbutz Alumot, Dimona, Oslo, the Knesset, and even an email from space — images of the late president’s extraordinary career

By Raphael Ahren 28 September 2016, 11:48 am Edit

Raphael Ahren is a former diplomatic correspondent at The Times of Israel.

Shimon Peres was undoubtedly one of the most photographed people in history.

From his early childhood in a village in what is today Belarus to his days as a young official in the Defense Ministry, his walks with Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, his countless meetings with popes and politicians, children and celebrities — pictures of his turbulent, decades-long career abound.

What follows is but a small selection, culled from various official and private archives.

They include a rare photo of an email sent from the Columbia space shuttle in which legendary astronaut Ilan Ramon thanks Peres for making him “the first Israeli ever to fly to space.”

: Shimon Peres as a child, sitting in the front row in a mandolin orchestra in what is today Belarus (Shimon Peres Archives)

: Shimon Peres as a child on a trip with the General Federation of Students and Young Workers (Shimon Peres Archives)

: Sonia and Shimon Peres in the 1940s (Photo Karni Haifa)

: Shimon Peres with his wife Sonia in a Zionist youth camp in Zichron Yaakov (Shimon Peres Archives)

: Shimon and Sonia Peres on their wedding day in 1945 at Kibbutz Alumot (IDF Archives)

: Then-defense minister Shimon Peres (left) with Yitzhak Rabin. (GPO)

: Shimon Peres (R) with then-premier David Ben Gurion (L) and Moshe Dayan (C) in the 1960s. (Defense Ministry Archives)

: Shimon Peres with his wife Sonia and their three children on November 15, 1958. (Avraham Vered/Defense Ministry Archive)

: Shimon Peres at an Israeli Independence Day event on May 2, 1960. (Defense Ministry Archive)

: Defense Minister Shimon Peres (r) with Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin welcoming the released Entebbe hostages upon their return to Israel on July 4, 1976. (Defense Ministry Archives)

: Then-defense minister Shimon Peres (c), along with former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (l), meets the hostages released from Entebbe as they land in Israel on July 4, 1976. (Uri Herzl Tzchik/IDF Spokesperson’s Unit/Defense Ministry Archives)

: Prime minister Peres visiting Israel Aerospace Industries’s Lavi project (Defense Ministry Archives)

: Shimon Peres and David Ben-Gurion visit Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona (Defense Ministry Archives)

: The late former President Shimon Peres with late Prime Minister David Ben Gurion on his daily walks through Kibbutz Sde Boker in 1969. (Defense Ministry Archives)

: Then-Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres with a child brought to Israel in the 1984 Operation Moses, which brought Ethiopian Jews to Israel (Defense Ministry Archives)

: Arafat and Peres (GPO)

: Shimon Peres at the Peres Center for Peace’s football program (Peres Center for Peace Archives)

: Shimon Peres being sworn in as ninth president of Israel in the Knesset in 2007 (GPO)

: The late president Shimon Peres visiting Israeli high-tech companies (GPO).

: A copy of an e-mail Shimon Peres received from trailblazing Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon before he died in the 2003 Columbia space shuttle accident (Shimon Peres archives)

: President Shimon Peres with the children of Sderot in a bomb shelter during Operation Protective Edge (GPO)

: President Shimon Peres hosting children with disabilities in his presidential sukkah (Yosef Avi Yair Engel)

: Shimon Peres with children at the Peres Center for Peace (Peres Center for Peace Archives)

: President Peres hosting Israeli children (GPO)

: President Peres visiting cherry tomato greenhouses in Israel’s Arava desert (GPO)

: Presidents Shimon Peres and Barack Obama in the White House, June 2012 (photo credit: Amos Ben Gershom/ GPO/Flash90)

: Shimon Peres and Naomi Campbell at the Peres Center for Peace in honor of International Women’s Day, March 8, 2016 (Courtesy Rafi Delouya)

: President Shimon Peres seen awarding Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel the Presidential Medal of Distinction, at a ceremony in New York City, November 25, 2013. (photo credit: Mark Neyman/GPO/Flash90)

: President Shimon Peres seen embracing Pope Francis on the red carpet at a welcoming ceremony, as the pope lands at Ben Gurion international airport, May 25, 2014 (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

: Shimon Peres’s Snapchat profile (Screen capture: Facebook)