Israel’s President Shimon Peres ended a weeklong visit to California with a wide-ranging discussion with Latino leaders.

The March 11 event with Peres at a Beverly Hills hotel drew some 120 invited guests, predominantly members of the Latino community and religious leaders, their Jewish counterparts, a smattering of Hollywood personalities, and numerous politicians eager to reach out to Latino and Jewish constituencies at the same time.

Peres, 88, showed his familiarity with Latin American literature and politics, but no sign of fatigue after a packed seven-day schedule that included visits to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and in Los Angeles a mass Jewish community meeting and a trip to the DreamWorks Animation studios.

Israeli deputy consul general Gil Artzyeli noted that the evening before, Hollywood had assembled the largest gathering of stars and studio heads to ever meet an Israeli dignitary. — jta