Delray Beach, Florida World War II veteran Harold Terens tells the AP he plans to become a man at some point early next year by undertaking the traditional Jewish rite of a bar mitzvah. At age 102.
Which is about 89 or 90 years later than usual but Terens had some familial difficulties back in the 1930s. “My mother came from Poland. My father came from Russia. And my mother was a religious Jew. And my father was anti-religious. So they had two sons. And one son, they compromised. One son got bar mitzvahed, the other son didn’t,” said Terens, explaining the odd arrangement.
Terens plans on having the ceremony at the Pentagon, the seat of the military he served as an airplane mechanic before and during the US-led invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944 and 1945.
The manhood ritual follows his wedding in France during the 2024 80th anniversary of D-Day. “I thought my wedding in Normandy last year was the highlight of my life. Number one of all the moments of my life. You know, that’s the saying, that life is not measured by how many breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away,” Terens said. It’s not clear if the former widower Terens’s current wife Jeanne Swerlin, 97, is a woman or needs to undergo a bat mitzvah.