‘Losing Him
Is Almost Like
Losing My Dad‘

Glenn Triest

world » Israel ’s Statesman

resourceful” and “who could write
beautiful poetry.”
She remembered a 1980s
visit to Israel as chair of Project
Renewal, forerunner to today’s
Partnership2Gether, linking Jewish
Detroit with Israel communities.
At a Project Renewal meeting at
the Knesset, she recalled that “lots
of Israelis from the neighborhoods
who only spoke Hebrew were there.
So I gave a speech in Hebrew —
here we were, Israeli
and Shimon, who was there, never
she was from — and then he
statesman, patriot and
let me forget that.”
asked her if she knew Max
Nobel Peace Prize laure-
Jane shared a favorite moment
Fisher, his good friend.
ate Shimon Peres and I in the
from the mid-1990s about the time
Losing Peres “is almost like
Franklin home of Jane and Larry
Peres founded the Peres Center
losing my dad,” Jane said as
Sherman, not talking global
for Peace. He was accompanying
we spoke Sept. 28, hours after
affairs, but how engaging the
a Jewish Agency group to Belarus,
Peres had died at age 93 and
Detroit Jewish community was.
where he was born in 1923 in
the day after she had returned
Robert Sklar
“I can feel your community’s
Vishnyeva, a town then known as
from Israel. “They not only
Contributing
connection to Israel,” Peres told
Wiszniew, Poland.
were good friends, but also
me, his English sporting a hint of Editor
“There we visited the original
very much alike — very quiet,
his Polish roots. “It’s something
family home,” Jane recalled. “After
very high dignity and not
special.”
somebody pumped water from the
impressed with themselves.”
Shimon Peres and Jane Sherman (in back) with Max Fisher
Here was a quintessential Israeli as com-
well out back, he took a drink. Then
and Penny Blumenstein at the Shermans’ Franklin recep-
READY TIES
fortable discussing nanotechnology, skydiv-
I was offered a drink and I didn’t
tion for the Israeli leader on May 1, 2000.
In the years before he became foreign
ing and Facebook — and Jewish Detroit —
hesitate, thinking it would be really
minister in 1986, Jane and Peres had
as he was security, diplomacy and politics.
quite something to drink from that
begun to nurture a deeper friendship.
Foundation and their new early childhood
The day after the Shermans hosted
original family well alongside him.”
“He became a very, very good friend,” she
mentorship initiative.
that May 1, 2000, reception for Peres, he
Peres and his family immigrated to
said. “There wasn’t a time he didn’t respond
As she and I talked, Jane began to receive
spoke at Wayne State
Mandatory Palestine in 1934, when he was
if I picked up the phone to call him if I
condolence calls, as if she were a member of
University in Detroit.
11.
needed something, no matter what position
the Peres family.
Sherman-hosted guests
Peres’ legacy, Jane said, will be one of a
She didn’t feel it was appropriate to visit
included Jane’s father, Max he was in.”
hawk, who became a dove.
Over the years, the Shermans had hosted
Peres on this latest Israel visit because of his
Fisher, a Detroit-based
As she put it: “He only wanted to see
Peres at least twice.
grave condition, but she kept in touch with
industrialist, philan-
peace in his lifetime. That’s what he strove
Jane, now a Bloomfield Hills resident,
his youngest son, Yoni. She last saw Peres,
thropic giant and world
for — even six months ago, before he suf-
is a long-serving member of the Jewish
the only prime minister ever to become
Jewish leader, as well
fered a stroke.”
Agency for Israel Executive and the Detroit
Israeli president, last year in Israel. He had
as Penny Blumenstein,
His passing marks not only the end of
Jane Sherman
Federation governing board. Her latest
retired in 2014.
then Jewish Federation
the era of Israel’s founding fathers, but
visit to Israel was in support of Federation’s
of Metropolitan Detroit
also the end of Jane Sherman’s bond with
NOTABLE MEMORIES
emerging leaders and philanthropists young
president.
an international figure who, she said,
Jane didn’t tire of reminiscing about a
couples mission and on behalf of the Jewish
At the time she met Peres about 40 years
“was never too big to be there as a real
Agency and the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher man “who was soft-spoken but politically
ago, Jane told him what she did and where
friend.”

T

*

‘In The Presence
Of Greatness’

Robin Schwartz | Contributing Writer

J

ust three short months ago, Gary
Shapiro and his wife, Susan
Malinowski, of Birmingham were
standing side by side with Shimon Peres in
Israel, taking photos after an intimate discus-
sion about innovation.
Shapiro is a bestselling author and CEO of
the Consumer Technology Association, the
U.S. trade organization representing more
than 2,000 consumer electronics and tech-
nology companies. He arranged the meeting
and brought along CEOs from several high-

30 October 6 • 2016

tech companies.
“[Peres] barely spoke above a whisper,
but what he said was so profound,” Shapiro
recalls. “He gave us a global perspective of
his view of the world and innovation and
technology; it was like being in the presence
of greatness.”
Shapiro says Peres challenged the group to
do all they could to focus on using innova-
tion and technology as a force to improve the
basic lives of billions of poor people around
the world.
“He was talking about how technology
is tearing down borders between countries

Gary Shapiro and Susan Malinowski with
Peres

and bringing people together,” Shapiro says.
“It was clear he wanted to meet with us to
inspire us.”
Shapiro previously met with Peres in 2014

with a group of executives at Peres Peace
House on the shores of Jaffa. Shapiro was so
struck by the conversation that he wrote an
opinion piece about it.
“We discussed innovation and the simi-
larities between Israel and the U.S.: our cul-
ture of risk, a high percentage of immigrants,
our focus on education, our spinoffs from
defense technologies and our free-market
systems,” Shapiro wrote. “I couldn’t resist
adding that Israel also benefits from an
abundance of Jewish mothers — known for
setting and enforcing high expectations for
their children. President Peres responded
that I left out an important reason why
Israelis are so innovative: Jews are dissatis-
fied. This ‘gift,’ as he [called] it, drives us to
try new things, invent solutions to problems
and create innovative and successful busi-
nesses.”

*

