The world’s oldest man turned 113 on Thursday and the Holocaust survivor living in Israel readied for the Bar Mitzvah he was denied a century ago, his family said.
Yisrael Kristal, an observant Jew from Zarnow in what is now Poland and currently living in the port city of Haifa, was born on September 15, 1903, three months before the Wright brothers’ first successful powered airplane flight.
Guinness World Records in March recognised him as the world’s oldest man.
While he turned 113 on Thursday under the Gregorian calendar, his family will celebrate the birthday at the end of September according to the Hebrew calendar, his daughter Shula Koperstoch told AFP.
The festivities will include a Bar Mitzvah that will come 100 years late.
The Bar Mitzvah is one of the most important ceremonies in the life of a Jew.
Usually marked at 13 for boys and 12 or 13 for girls — a Bat Mitzvah in that case — it marks the transition into someone responsible for their actions.
Kristal was unable to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah in 1916 because his mother had died three months earlier and his father was a soldier in the Russian army at the time of World War I.
“My father is religious and has prayed every morning for 100 years, but he has never had his Bar Mitzvah,” his daughter said.
Around 100 family members will attend, with the date and location being kept secret to avoid Kristal having to contend with a crush of journalists, she said.
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