DAVID GREENE, HOST: Good morning. I'm David Greene. Thirteen-year-old Jewish boys mark their coming of age with a bar mitzvah. But Yisrael Kristal, the world's oldest man, never had one. Born in Poland, his was cancelled because of World War I. Kristal lost his family in the Holocaust and moved to Israel where, this week, a hundred relatives are gathering to celebrate his 113th birthday and to hold that overdue bar mitzvah. We will bless him. We will dance with him. We will be happy, his daughter said. Mazel tov, Mr. Kristal. It's MORNING EDITION.
Yisrael Kristal, the world's oldest man, was never bar mitzvahed. He was living in Poland when he turned 13. His coming-of-age ceremony was called off because of World War One.