The Honorable Shimon Peres, former President and Prime Minister of the State of Israel, will be the special guest speaker at the annual Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago Vanguard Dinner. The event, set for Tuesday, Oct. 28, begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Hilton Chicago, 720 S. Michigan Ave. Couvert $100 per person. Attendance requires a contribution at the Vanguard level to the 2015 JUF Annual Campaign.

Neil G. Bluhm, 2015 Vanguard Chair, and Sara Crown Star, 2015 General Campaign Chair, will host the event.

Peres, 91, has been committed to Israel and its citizens for most of his lifetime. He served as a member of Knesset for 48 years, the longest term of service in Knesset history. He served as Minister in 12 cabinets and twice as Prime Minister (1984-1986, 1995-1996), Deputy Minister of Defense under David Ben Gurion (1959-1965), Treasury Minister (1988-1990), Minister of Defense (1974-1977, 1995-1996), and Foreign Minister (1986-1988, 2001-2002). In 2007, Peres was elected to serve as the ninth President of the State of Israel.

Among his numerous accomplishments, Peres has been at the forefront of Israel’s development as an independent state. During his term at the Ministry of Defense, he headed Israel’s research, production, and acquisition front, and his initiative brought about the establishment of the aerospace industry, the electronic and nuclear industries, and the Armaments Development Authority.

Peres has said, “In Israel, a land lacking in natural resources, we learned to appreciate our greatest national advantage: our minds. Through creativity and innovation, we transformed barren deserts into flourishing fields and pioneered new frontiers in science and technology.”

He is known as a promoter of peace. In 2005, he joined Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in founding a new political party, Kadima. Sharon had departed from the Likud party and accepted a peace agreement with the Palestinians on the basis of the “two states for two peoples” principle, beginning with the unilateral evacuation of the Gaza Strip. “Democratic and science-based economies by nature desire peace,” Peres has said. “Israel does not want to be an island of affluence in an ocean of poverty. Improvements in our neighbors’ lives mean improvements to the neighborhood in which we live.”

During his term as Minister of Defense, Peres devoted most of his efforts to restoring the Israel Defense Force (IDF), which was damaged in the Yom Kippur War. He initiated the Entebbe Operation, approved by the government, and succeeded in rescuing kidnapped Israelis from Uganda.

As Prime Minister, Peres led an economic stabilization plan that saved the Israeli economy from collapse and reduced hyper-inflation that reached 400 percent per year. In 1986, while serving as Substitute Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, he held negotiations and secured a far-reaching peace agreement which included Israeli-Jordanian cooperation in administrating the West Bank.

In 1994, Peres, along with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1996, work began on the Peres Peace Center, which deals in initiating and operating going projects with Israel’s Palestinian, Jordanian, and Egyptian neighbors in the fields of economy, culture, education, sports, computer sciences, agriculture, communications and medicine. One of the Center’s important projects is the treatment of injured and ill Palestinian children at hospital in Israel. To date, some 8,000 children have been treated and cured under this arrangement. The Center also operates a program for training hundreds of Palestinian doctors.

As President, Peres focused on Israel’s high-tech development, and supported environmental protection efforts that included the use of alternative energies. He also promoted civil equality for minority populations, to reduce social gaps and promote affirmative action for weak and marginal populations.

Peres has published six books, including “The New Middle East,” with Aryeh Naor, which was translated into more than 30 languages.

For tickets and information, contact Robyn Brenner at (312)357-4961, or email [email protected]. You may register online at www.juf.org/vanguard.

For a complete biography of Shimon Peres, visit here.