Yisrael Kristal . I found notable that the world oldest man was an holocaust survivor.
Also, he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah some months ago at age 113.
l’chaim, Yisrael!
“Today, I am a man?”
“Not until you’ve graduated medical school, my son.”
If this isn’t the biggest personal “Fuck You” to the Nazis, I don’t know what is.
Kidding aside, I get his desire to have a ceremony, but from a strict halakhic perspective, he WAS bar mitzvah when he turned 13. It’s not like a Catholic Confirmation, which is a sacrament administered by the bishop, and if you’re not there that day, you don’t get confirmed. The Jewish ceremony highlights a transition that happens with or without the ritual: the youngster is now bar mitzvah, son of the commandments. He can participate in a minyan; he may be called for a Reading of the Scroll. His father announces baruch sheptaranee meionesh halazeh, “Blessed is Him who has released me from being liable for this boy,” to signify that under the law, henceforth, his child is responsible for his own transgressions.
Not trying to rain on his parade, but he’s been bar mitzvah for many years.
Bricker, the OP did say that he CELEBRATED it then, not that he became it then.
I wonder why the war kept him from celebrating it at the usual time. (And why he waited for 100 years to make up for it.)
I presume he did celebrate it at the usual time, and that the one marking his survival a century later was an “bar mitzvah” in name only to mark the occasion.
The odometer rolled over. 
The article specifically said that he was unable to celebrate it when he was thirteen, due to the war.
According to the articles about it, his mother was dead, his father was in the army, and he was working in his uncle’s candy factory.
He’s looking pretty good. All of the other supercentenarians I’ve seen have had bloodshot fisheyes and looked fairly sickly.
Hopefully, he’ll stick it out another decade just to flip off the universe.
+1 
So, what would be the tone of this discussion if the world’s oldest man turned out to be a former nazi? Or a Muslim? Or Gay? Or left-handed? Or illiterate? Ora millionaire? Or blue-eyed?
I believe there was a time when the oldest person i the USA was a former slave. So what?
“an holocaust”??
mmm
- Lame
- Exciting for Muslims, probably.
- Exciting for gays and people who support sexual rights.
- Exciting for Lefties
- Interesting factoid to some
- Curious
- Uninteresting
[
Technically, all news is a “so what”. Either it affects you, in which case you probably already know, since it affects you. Or it doesn’t affect you, in which case it could plausibly fall under the heading of “so what?”
We went to the moon! So what?
A comet just took out Mongolia! So what?
The Earth is flat! So what?
If you don’t care, then don’t care. Many think that it’s cool that someone who get dumped on for many years has been able to get more life than most, perhaps making up a little bit for the wrong that was done. Karma might not be a thing, but that doesn’t mean that the idea of positive karma doesn’t make most people happy.
Which in this case would be World War One.
That makes sense, thanks.
Hey, he lives in Haifa! My home town! Represent!