(JTA) — Jewish groups in Israel, the United States and around the world lauded former Israeli President Shimon Peres, who died Wednesday, as a respected leader and a warrior for peace.

“Peres was always driven by a deep sense of responsibility toward the entire Jewish people. He concerned himself with the fate and future of the entire nation, but also with each of its sons and daughters, both near and far,” Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel said.

Sharansky recalled that Peres was “the first Israeli” he saw when he arrived from Russia after his many years in prison and that he would always remember the then-prime minister as “the individual who started the Israeli chapter of my life.”

Peres served as president of Israel from 2007 to 2014 and twice for short terms as prime minister.

Ellen Hershkin, the president of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, said her organization lost more than a powerful senior statesman and peacemaker.

“We have lost more than a strong defender of Israel, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and a father of the Oslo Accords, a past prime minister and president.” Her members, she said, have lost “a friend.”

European Jewish Council President Moshe Kantor said in a statement: “An important part of our people is no longer with us and our collective heart is aching.”

American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris met with Peres many times, both in Israel and the United States.

“Peres had extraordinary energy, boundless optimism, and future-oriented vision, not only about the possibilities of peace and coexistence in the region, but also about the exciting pathways of new technologies for the benefit of humankind — from nano-science to mapping the brain,” he said in a statement.

Peres reached the peak of his popularity while serving as the country’s president, according to the AJC statement.
“Liberated from the constraints of partisan politics, he emerged as a revered symbol of national unity and a visionary spokesman for peace between Israel and its neighbors,” it said.

The Anti-Defamation League called Peres “the diplomatic, political and social innovation face of Israel over a seven-decade career.”

“His moderation and insight not only drew world leaders and dignitaries to meet and consult with him, but also served Israel in its ongoing fight against delegitimization and other anti-Israel forces,” Marvin Nathan, the ADL’s national chair, and Jonathan Greenblatt, its CEO, said in a statement.

The ADL leaders marveled that Peres had recently taken up skydiving to “promote social innovation and new advanced technologies for international social change and the greater good.”

B’nai B’rith International said in a statement: “The history of the State of Israel cannot be written without including Peres and his myriad accomplishments during a nearly 70-year career in public service.”

AIPAC called Peres “an indefatigable advocate for justice and human progress,” and said his  legacy “will live on through the many good deeds he accomplished, the countless lives he enriched, and the commitment to the Jewish state he inspired in so many.”

J Street said Peres “will be remembered for his tireless efforts to keep Israel safe and in his latter years to reach a just peace with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution.” The liberal Jewish Middle East policy group in a statement called Peres “the grandfather of the entire nation (who) was in many ways its moral conscience, preaching untiringly the need for peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians.”

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the New York-based Union for Reform Judaism, said Peres “was a tough-minded lover of peace who understood that Israel lives in a dangerous neighborhood and must have the deterrence it needs, but that in the end, the best deterrence is hope for a better tomorrow, and promoting the wisdom and creativity of the Israeli people on the world stage, while also ensuring that Israel engages significantly in a global arena.”

“We have truly lost a giant, but we have not lost the resolve to continue to dream and to continue to strive for an Israel that lives side by side with its neighbors, in peace and with justice,” Jacobs said.

The Orthodox Union called Peres “a beacon of light in times of darkness for our people.”

It added: “As someone who built lasting bridges across the secular-religious divide in Israeli society, Peres knew intimately the importance of Israel’s Jewish identity in the state’s vibrant character. His legacy inspires us to continue doing our work, ensuring a strong Jewish future with a strong Jewish state.”

Women of the Wall’s Anat Hoffman praised Peres for his championing of equal rights for women, something she said Peres did “from his days as a young soldier in the trenches to his last days as an elder statesman pursuing peace in the Middle East.”

The Israeli American Council praised Peres as “a giant of our time,” saying he “absorbed nearly a century of Jewish experience and used it to build a strong and vibrant state of Israel and pursue peace.”
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The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial lauded Peres as “a dedicated supporter of teaching the legacy of the Shoah, so that the Jewish people — and all humanity — may have a brighter future. Shimon Peres worked tirelessly to further the causes of justice and peace for all humankind.”

Political and Jewish leaders around the world mourned the death Wednesday morning of Shimon Peres, who was present at the creation of the state of Israel and led the country through times both troubled and peaceful.
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Peres, who was twice prime minister of Israel and was president as late as 2014, died in Tel Aviv at the age of 93.
"There are few people who we share this world with who change the course of human history, not just through their role in human events, but because they expand our moral imagination and force us to expect more of ourselves," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement. "My friend Shimon was one of those people."

Former President George H.W. Bush, likewise, saluted Peres' "unyielding determination and principle."
"Shimon Peres time and again helped guide his beloved country through the crucible of mortal challenge," Bush said from his home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Peres will probably best be remembered for his negotiations, as foreign minister, of the historic Oslo Accords in 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize the following year with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

"I'll never forget how happy he was 23 years ago when he signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, heralding a more hopeful era in Israeli-Palestinian relations," former President Bill Clinton, who helped broker the deal, said on learning of Peres' death.

But his shadow was much bigger, casting itself upon the entire history of the Israeli state, said Daniel S. Mariaschin, executive vice president of B'nai B'rith International, the oldest Jewish service organization in the world.

"He really was the face of Israel in many, many countries around the world," Mariaschin, who serves as B'nai B'rith's chief executive and met Peres many times, told NBC News.

Peres joined the Haganah, the predecessor of the Israel Defense Forces, in 1947 and served alongside David Ben-Gurion in the first Arab-Israeli War, which began when Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forces invaded Palestine on May 15, 1948. That was one day after Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of Israel.

Peres was often referred to as one of Ben-Gurion's "old boys, and the founding prime minister appointed his protégé director of the new country's naval services. He promoted Peres to director-general of the Defense Ministry in 1952, age 29.

"You could say Ben-Gurion was the founding father of the country, and Peres was by his side ... making important contributions," Mariaschin said. "His involvement in Israel, his political life, almost spans the entire time of the state of Israel."
Time and again, Peres was at the center of military crises. He played a major role in planning the British-French invasion of Egypt over the Suez Canal in 1956, which ended mostly in failure.

And he was the defense minister responsible for engineering Operation Entebbe — when Israeli commandos successfully rescued more than 100 hostages who had been seized on a plane at Entebbe Airport in Uganda in July 1976 by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

With the raid on Entebbe Airport, Peres helped to establish modern military counterterrorism operations, Mariaschin said.

At the same time, Peres was a complex, intellectual man who was "interested in a range of issues beyond his immediate agenda," Mariaschin said. When he was director of the Defense Ministry's delegation to the United States during the 1950s, he studied English, economics, and philosophy at The New School and New York University, and then advanced management at Harvard University.

Peres had "a capability to read an issue and to act quickly ... but also with a great deal of thought," Mariaschin said.
"He was a very good speaker, and with a turn of a phrase he could encapsulate matters in a way that wordsmiths do," Mariaschin said. "Listening to his speeches or even at a meeting in an office, you would listen very carefully to what he had to say, because he used his words carefully and very well."

"His loss will be felt by many," Mariaschin said. "We mourn his loss and know that in many parts of the world that many others are doing so, as well."

Other prominent figures also noted what Bush called Peres' "innate humanity," through which he "inspired the world over and helped pave a path to peace broad enough that future generations will walk it one day, side-by-side," the former president said.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, chose to highlight what he characterized as Peres' gift for looking beyond the passing issues of the day, which he said was apparent in a meeting with Hier, filmmaker Jeffery Katzenberg and Jerry Seinfeld over Hanukkah in 2007.

Hier said Wednesday morning that during the meeting, Peres said of Israel: "Gentlemen, not all miracles are in the Bible. You are visiting Israel. The whole country is a miracle! We have no oil, no water, but look at what Israel has accomplished."

Marvin Nathan, and Jonathan Greenblatt, national chairman and chief executive, respectively, of the Anti-Defamation League, noted Peres' military and political achievements in a joint statement. But they also stressed his engagement with society at large, right up until his death.

"At an age when all of his contemporaries had entered retirement, along with taking up skydiving, Peres worked to promote social innovation and new advanced technologies for international social change and the greater good," they said.

In his statement, Clinton called Peres "a genius with a big heart."
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"His critics called him a dreamer. That he was — a lucid, eloquent dreamer until the very end," Clinton said. "Thank goodness. Let those of us who loved him and love his nation keep his dream alive."

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi applauded the level of cooperation between Israel and Egypt in a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders in New York on Tuesday.
 
Among those attended the meeting were representatives of B’nai B’rith, American Jewish Committee, Conference of Presidents and World Jewish Congress as well as other leading U.S. figures including military and political officials and U.S. think tanks.
 
Sisi, who was in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, lauded Israel and Egypt's smooth coordination to ensure a peaceful situation in the Sinai Peninsula.

According to foreign reports, the Israeli Air Force is taking part in the attacks against ISIS in Sinai and the IDF's Military Intelligence Unit 8200 is assisting Egyptian forces to collect and decipher information about the terrorists there.

Sisi added that Egypt is on top of the terror situation in Sinai and praised the close cooperation of his country with the US and Israel in the battle against terror. 

He also emphasized that Egypt is committed to getting the peace process going in different parts of the region, specifically between Israel and the Palestinians.

In his discussion with the Jewish leaders, he outlined his vision of Egypt in the future and emphasized his commitment to human rights and religious reforms. He also discussed Egyptian elections, and the high number of young people in parliament today.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Sisi urged Israel to take advantage of current opportunities to resume negotiations with the Palestinians.

El presidente Mauricio Macri recibió hoy en su habitación del hotel The Mark a los máximos representantes de la comunidad judía mundial que lo felicitaron por el discurso de ayer ante la ONU para pedir colaboración al mundo por esclarecer los atentados pero le hicieron notar que en sus palabras falto una mención a Irán.

Los dirigentes de la colectividad judía hablaron con el presidente sobre la necesidad de esclarecer los atentados en la Argentina y la sospechosa muerte del fiscal Alberto Nisman.
 
"La única mención al tema Irán fue la que hizo uno de los dirigentes que dijo que lo felicitaba por la mención muy bien planteada de los atentados, pero que no se hizo mención a Irán," confió a LA NACION uno de los participantes de la reunión.

Según la misma fuente, el Presidente no contestó a la observación. Ayer le había dicho a LA NACION que esa mención estaba implícita en la referencia que hizo en su discurso.

"Se hablo de colaboración en términos genéricos y de colaboración con la justicia para esclarecer loa casos del atentado a la Amia y la muerte de Nisman", dijo a LA NACION Adrian Wertein, representante del Congreso Judío Latinoamericano.

"Le agradecimos al Presidente el momento que vive la Argentina en términos del respeto a los derechos individuales y al libre juego de las instituciones y al sistema republicano", agregó Wertein.

Sobre el caso Nisman, Macri manifestó su optimismo en el esclarecimiento porque pasó poco tiempo del hecho. Pero menos esperanza tenía en cuanto a la Amia, por el tiempo transcurrido y la eliminación de pruebas, mas allá de la acusación a cinco sospechosos de Irán.
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Consultado, Wertein sobre si se hizo mención a la falta de mención de Mauricio Macri a Irán admitió que "no hubo reclamo sino una notación de uno de los presentes que lo felicitó por el discurso, pero había notado la ausencia de mención a Irán".