It is customary for Jewish boys and girls to celebrate their bar and bat mitzvah, generally at the age of thirteen—or twelve in some denominations. This is the ceremony that welcomes them into Jewish adulthood, and it is something Jewish children grow up looking forward to. For Yisrael Kristal, his big day took a bit longer than he thought. Now recognized as the world’s oldest man, Kristal was born in 1903 in Poland. His original bar mitzvah was canceled while his father fought in the Russian Army in World War I. His mother had passed away three years earlier.
During the Holocaust, Kristal endured the horrors of Auschwitz and lost his wife, two children, and other family members. He moved to Haifa, Israel, where he remarried and worked for many years as a candy maker. At 113 years old, Yisrael Kristal finally got to live out his dream of having a bar mitzvah in September 2016. Nearly 100 family members came from all over to celebrate his special day.