Shimon Peres Net Worth

What is Shimon Peres's Net Worth?

Shimon Peres was an Israeli politician who had a net worth of $10 million at the time of his death in 2016. Shimon Peres served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and again from 1995 to 1996, and was later the president of Israel from 2007 to 2014. An elder statesman, he represented five political parties across a political career spanning 70 years, and served in 12 different cabinets.

Early Life and Education

Shimon Peres was born Szymon Perski on August 2, 1923 in Wiszniew, Poland to Sara and Yitzhak. His father was an affluent timber merchant and his mother was a librarian. Peres was greatly influenced by his grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Meltzer. In 1934, the family moved to Tel Aviv, where Peres attended Gymnasia Balfour and Geula Gymnasium. When he was 15, he transferred to the Ben Shemen youth village and agricultural boarding school and began living on the Geva kibbutz. In 1941, Peres was elected secretary of the Labor Zionist youth movement Noar HaOved, which he would later take over. Meanwhile, all of his relatives who remained in Wiszniew were killed during the Holocaust. In 1947, Peres joined the Haganah. Moving to the United States in the early 1950s, he studied at the New School and New York University and completed a four-month course in management at Harvard University.

Government Positions, 1952-1984

After holding various diplomatic and military positions during and after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Peres had his first high-level government position in 1952, as deputy director general of defense. Subsequently, in 1953, he was promoted to director general of defense, becoming the youngest person ever to hold the job. Peres remained in the position until 1959. During his tenure as director general, he participated in the historic negotiations on the Protocol of Sèvres in 1956. At the end of the decade, Peres was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Mapai party, and served as deputy minister of defense until 1965. In that role, he held negotiations with US President John F. Kennedy in 1963 that resulted in the historic sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel.

In the second half of the 1960s, Peres co-founded the Rafi party, which merged with Mapai in 1968 to form the Israeli Labor Party. The year after that, Peres was named minister of immigrant absorption under Prime Minister Golda Meir. He then became minister of transportation and communications, and after that minister of information, both under Meir. In 1974, Peres was appointed minister of defense under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a position he held until 1977, when he briefly succeeded Rabin as acting prime minister. After the Likud-led government assumed power in 1977, Peres took on the unofficial role of Knesset opposition leader. He became the vice president of Socialist International in 1978 and led Labor in opposition until 1984.

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Prime Minister of Israel, 1984-1986

In the 1984 elections, the Alignment and Likud coalitions agreed to an unusual grand coalition unity government that involved Peres serving as prime minister for two years followed by Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir serving the remaining two. While one was prime minister, the other would serve as foreign minister. Under this rotation arrangement, Peres enjoyed significant popularity during his premiership from 1984 to 1986, particularly for his Economic Stabilization Plan.

Government Positions, 1986-1995

After his tenure as foreign minister from 1986 to 1988, Peres served as the minister of finance from 1988 to 1990. He then returned to the opposition, which he led in the Knesset until 1992 when he was defeated by Yitzhak Rabin in the Israeli Labor Party leadership election. Following Labor's success in the 1992 Knesset election, with Rabin again becoming prime minister, Peres was appointed foreign minister for a second time. During his second tenure as foreign minister, he helped engineer the historic Oslo Accords in 1993 and Israel-Jordan peace treaty in 1994. For his work on the Oslo Accords, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Rabin and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Prime Minister of Israel, 1995-1996

In late 1995, Rabin was assassinated by a rightwing Israeli who opposed the Oslo peace process. Consequently, Peres became acting prime minister and acting defense minister. He was then named the new leader of the Labor Party, after which he formed a new coalition government and became the Israeli prime minister for the second time. Ultimately, his second tenure as prime minister lasted just seven months.

Government Positions, 1996-2007

Peres once again became the opposition leader when he lost to Benjamin Netanyahu in the 1996 election. That year, he founded the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation to promote peace in the Middle East. Peres ran for president of Israel in 2000 but lost to Likud candidate Moshe Katsav. He made a comeback in 2001 when he helped usher Labor into a grand coalition unity government with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud. As a result, he became foreign minister under Sharon, serving in that position until Labor departed the unity government in 2002. The following year, Peres became interim leader of Labor, which had been roundly defeated in the 2003 Knesset election. In 2005, he was appointed Sharon's vice prime minister. Later that year, Peres announced he would be leaving Labor to support Sharon's new Kadima party. He went on to resign from the Knesset in early 2006, only to return as a member of Kadima in that year's elections.

President of Israel, 2007-2014

In mid-2007, Peres was elected president of Israel. He served as president until July of 2014, when he was succeeded by Reuven Rivlin. During his presidency, Peres was widely noted for his use of social media to communicate with the public. At the end of his presidency, he was 90 years of age, making him the world's oldest head of state.

Personal Life and Death

In 1945, Peres married Sonya Gelman, whom he had met at the Ben Shemen youth village. The couple informally separated after Peres became president in 2007, and Gelman passed away in early 2011. They had three children together: Tsvia, Yoni, and Nehemia. Beyond his work in government, Peres wrote poetry and songs throughout his life.

On September 13, 2016, Peres had a major stroke and was hospitalized in Ramat Gan. Although he appeared to be in stable condition after two days, it was later discovered that he had irreversible brain damage and would be unable to recover. On September 28, Peres passed away at the age of 93. He is interred at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

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