The oldest man in the world has just celebrated his bar mitzvah
In the Jewish tradition, a boy becomes a man at the ripe age of 13. He's called to the Torah, ready to enter your place in society.
But that's not how it happened for Yisrael Kristal, recently honored by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest man. The 113-year old was 13 in 1916, about to embark on the coming-of-age ritual. But the turmoil surrounding World War I was too much. So, Kristal's ceremony was delayed...but just by a century.
After the war, Kristal moved to Lodz, Poland and opened a candy store with a family member. But when World War II struck, his business was stolen by the Nazis and he was imprisoned in Auschwitz. Kristal lost his wife and two children during the war, and barely made it out himself. When it was over, he weighed a mere 82 pounds.
Kristal doesn't know the secret to life, but he does know about hard work. When he won the World Record, he said:
"I don't know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger and better looking men then me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost."
Kristal made it to Israel, where he opened a business and raised another family. Surrounded by two children, nine grandchildren and around 30 great grandchildren, Kristal finally became a bar mitzvah.
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