Shimon Peres — president (nobel peace) with roots in the Russian Empire
Shimon Peres, born Szymon Perski in 1923 in Wiszniew, Russian Empire, served as President and Prime Minister of Israel and won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. He shaped Israel's defense, diplomacy, and peace efforts across seven decades of public life.
"Persky family emigrated from Wiszniew to Mandatory Palestine in 1934, escaping interwar antisemitism."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Vishneva (Belarus)
Peres grew up speaking Yiddish and Polish in a shtetl under the residual culture of the Russian Empire. His grandfather, a rabbi, instilled deep Jewish learning before the family fled rising antisemitism in 1934, a rupture that forever shaped his drive for a secure Jewish state.
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Vishneva (Belarus). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
""I was born in a small village in Belarus, and I carry it with me always — the memory of what Jews endured and what we must never again endure.""