At a funeral ceremony in Jerusalem President Rosen Plevneliev and tens of world leaders paid last tribute to president (2007-2014) and prime minister of the State of Israel in the period 1984-1986 and 1995-1996 Shimon Peres.
Since 2012 onwards Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev and the Nobel Prize bearer Shimon Peres have met twice – during President Rosen Plevneliev’s state visit to Israel in October 2012 and in March 2013 – in the European Parliament in Brussels, where the 70th anniversary of the salvation of the Bulgarian Jews during World War II was marked.
In his speech on the occasion of the anniversary of the historical act of the Bulgarian people, who saved 48,000 Bulgarian Jews from the death camps in 1943, the President of Israel addressed the Bulgarians with the words: “I know that Bulgaria is going through an economic crisis, better economic crises than a historic shame. Better troubles economically than death in wars or in camps, gas camps. It is a great lesson.”
On 6 March 2013 in the presence of the Bulgarian Head of State Rosen Plevneliev, Shimon Peres further said: “So today it is an occasion to thank Bulgaria not just as a state, not just as a group of leaders, but a collection of people that daily, quietly, courageously took the risk to save the life of another people and pay the price. It is heroic occasion (…) Of all the parts of our body still the heart is the most sensitive one. Still the feelings are the greatest treasure and still a moral choice is the wisest one we can experience.”