Senior Living June 25, 2018

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Supplement to Jewish News June 25, 2018 jewishnewsva.org | June 25, 2018 | Senior Living | Jewish News | 11

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Senior Living How seniors can plan now to save on taxes and pay for long-term care

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wo major expenses seniors face that can derail retirement plans are taxes and long-term care.

Working those two problems hand-inhand, however, could provide solutions for both that seniors and their families may not have thought about, says Chris Orestis, executive vice president of GWG Life and author of the books Help on the Way and A Survival Guide to Aging.

“There are tax deductions seniors can take advantage of that would lower their tax bill, which in turn would give them extra money to help with long-term care expenses,” Orestis says. “There are also tax-advantaged ways they can exit out of a life insurance policy they don’t need any more, which would help them solve some of the financial challenges they face.”

And, although tax-filing season has passed, now is the time to start thinking about those tax savings so they can be in place by the end of the year and be included when seniors file in April 2019, Orestis says.

Some of those potential tax deductions or strategies for seniors include: • Costs of senior living and long-term care. If you’re diagnosed as chronically ill, some long-term care expenses can be tax deductible, Orestis says. Those expenses need to be more than 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income, though.

So, what constitutes chronically ill?

“You must be diagnosed and under a certified care plan issued by a doctor or nurse that addresses your inability to perform two or more activities of daily living,” Orestis says. “Or you need to be suffering from cognitive impairments.”

Family members may also be entitled to tax deductions if they are financially contributing to the costs of care for a loved one and qualify as a dependent, Orestis says. So, it’s important to keep track of those expenses.

• Long-term care insurance premiums. Owners of long-term care insurance policies can take tax deductions on

Know the tax rules and how they apply to you. premiums they pay for qualified plans—as well as other reimbursed medical expenses such as Medicare premiums—as long as the premiums are greater than 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income, Orestis says.

• Life insurance and changes to the estate tax. Many large life insurance policies were purchased over the years as a wealth and legacy-preservation strategy to offset the impact of estate taxes, Orestis says. Prior to tax reform, the first $5,490,000 of income was exempt from the estate tax for individuals and nearly $11 million was exempt for married couples. Now exemptions have been roughly doubled to $11 million for individuals and $22 million for a married couple.

“That means insurance policies currently in force to protect estates valued below the new levels are no longer necessary,” Orestis says. “This presents a chance for the policy owner to sell the policy and recoup some or all of their premium payments under more advantageous tax conditions.”

An accountant or financial professional could provide more details about whether you’re eligible to take advantage of any of these deductions or strategies, Orestis says.

“The important thing to remember is that if you’re facing long-term care or other retirement expenses that seem to be more than you can handle, you may have options you hadn’t thought about,” Orestis says. “Knowing the tax rules and how they apply to your personal situation can make a huge difference.”

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jewishnewsva.org | June 25, 2018 | Senior Living | Jewish News | 13

Ruth’s Life Said a Lot About Her As a “pink lady” Ruth Goodman volunteered more hours than anyone else at the Norfolk hospital where she greeted visitors for years.

Before she died in 1995, Ruth arranged for a Hampton Roads Community Foundation bequest to forever give good health to the community she and her late husband Victor loved.

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Senior Living Elsie’s Story Jerilyn Goodman

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he speaks with a slight, but distinct, accent whose origin I had long suspected, but, given her age and all that implied, been hesitant to ask. One night at dinner, though, I posed the simple question to 95-year-old Elsie Hirsch, “Where are you from?” She looked at me with an imperceptibly sad smile and, after a long pause, replied, “Where do you think?” Afraid of probing too deeply, I held her gaze and meekly ventured, “Eastern Europe.”

Her piercing blue eyes did not flinch when she said, “Germany,” pronouncing it “Chermany,” a tonal hint of the homeland she had left nearly eight decades ago.

“When did you come here?” I continued, a tentative way of asking whether she’d been fortunate enough to have fled the Nazis or strong enough to have survived them. “In 1939,” she replied.

Despite the bustle all around us, my eyes and my heart were fixed on this small, soft spoken woman. “How did you get out?”

I asked gently. I was more than curious. I felt compelled to know her story, obliged, in my own small way, to bear witness. Offering scant details—her father’s cousin had sponsored them, a brother already in Portsmouth, Virginia—she said quietly, “I don’t like to talk about it.” We turned to other topics, but I couldn’t forget her brief account and the certainty that there was more to it. The next day, I asked if I could interview her more formally. “I don’t like to talk about it,” she resisted again. I explained that I would try to put her account on paper, that she could read it and decide whether she was comfortable sharing it with others, that I would do nothing without her consent, but there was value and meaning in her testimony.

Finally, she agreed.

In the middle of the night of November 9, 1938, 16-year-old Else Moos, asleep in her bed in the German city of Ülm, was awakened by loud knocks on the door. On what would come to be called Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, Germans took to the streets in a wave of violence against their Jewish neighbors. Through the long night and into the next day, Else’s synagogue was burned, Jewish businesses were looted, and her father, Adolph, a prosperous linen merchant, was arrested by the Gestapo. Along with scores of his fellow landsmen, he was taken to the local jail, then shipped to the concentration camp at Dachau.

It was a shock, she said, but not a total surprise. Already, Jewish children could no longer go to school in Ülm or play in the parks. A sign at the local movie theater read “No Jews Allowed.”

For months, conversation in the family’s close-knit circle of friends had centered on leaving Germany. “That’s all we talked about,” she recalled, “When are you leaving?” and “How are you going?”

One after another, they left—one family to Argentina, another to South Africa, and more to America. The Moos family had planned that they, too, would be going. Even with her father trapped in Dachau, unable to finish her last year of high school, and

14 | Jewish News | Senior Living | June 25, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org

Elsie Hirsch

her world upended, Else and a cousin dared to take a train every day to a Jewish school still open in Stuttgardt, 60 miles away, to learn English, in anticipation of their own departure.

Else’s older brother, Heinz, had been the first to go.

Sponsored by their father’s first cousin, Albert, who lived in New Jersey, he had arrived in the U.S., just weeks before her father’s arrest. It was the depths of the Depression and work was hard to find in New York. Assisted by a Jewish resettlement agency, Heinz, whose name was now Anglicized to Henry, went to Portsmouth, where he knew a friend from home, and found work in a department store.

With the official start of the war still months away, Adolph Moos was one of the lucky ones. After six weeks in Dachau, miraculously, he was allowed to return home. “They released everybody in (the camp), because they didn’t know what to do

Senior Living with them,” said Elsie, who would add an “I” to her own name once in the States.

Thankful to be reunited, there was no doubt that the family faced grave danger.

On learning of his father’s ordeal, Henry reached out immediately to the cousin who had sponsored his own immigration and said it was urgent to get the rest of his family out of Germany.

Cousin Albert, whose work in 1933 had taken him, temporarily, to the U.S., realized that, with the rise of Nazism in his homeland, he could never return to Germany. Settling in New Jersey, he pursued an academic career while working passionately to help save fellow Jews in Europe, including colleagues still in Germany. As honorary president of the Union for the Protection of the Well-Being of the Jewish Population (OSE), he not only solicited and encouraged others to take action to save persecuted Jews, but made his own, direct appeals.

In a letter that year to the President of Turkey, through its Prime Minister, Albert wrote, “I beg to apply to your Excellency to allow forty professors and medical doctors from Germany to continue their scientific and medical work in Turkey.

The above mentioned cannot practice further in Germany on account of the laws,” adding shrewdly, “…in granting this request your Government will not only perform an act of high humanity, but it will bring profit to your own country.”

It was later reported that, counting the men, their families and staff welcomed

by Turkey thanks to that entreaty, Albert saved 1,000 lives.

Despite the persecution in Europe, Jewish immigration to the U.S. was strictly limited by quotas, and refugees needed to be sponsored by two individuals, preferably relatives. Following Adolph Moos’s release from Dachau, a long, anxious year passed until finally, under his cousin’s sponsorship, he, his wife and daughter received visas to enter the U.S. In December 1939, abandoning their home, their business, and all but a few possessions, the family managed to reach Holland where they boarded a ship bound for New York. Elsie’s mother, Hilde, had no siblings, but her father had three brothers still in Ülm. Tragically, they

believed the move was unnecessary and chose to stay in Germany.

The voyage was perilous. With the war already started, the German navy had placed mines along the sea route to block American supply vessels. A few days into the trip, the vessel stopped dead in the water. “They had to decide whether to continue or turn back,” Elsie recalled.

Facing the threat of death in both directions, the fate of the Jewish refugees lay in the hands of the shipping company and their captain. “We stood there for about two or three days, “she said, “not moving, not knowing what to do.” Ultimately, the ship went ahead and she and her parents landed, safe, but destitute, in New York.

“I think we came with ten dollars each,” she said.

Jewish services reunited the family with Henry in Virginia to start their new life, but, with limited command of the language and scant resources, 65-yearold Adolph, was lucky to find work. The affluent businessman, who had sold the finest fabrics to German high society, now carried heavy baskets of linens and clothing up and down stairs in a laundry.

Seventeen-year-old Elsie, skilled in handiwork, knitting and crocheting, took a job sewing in a clothes factory. Her great regret, to this day, is that she was not able to finish high school. At the factory, she met her future husband, Jerry, born Joachim, Hirsch, who’d been a medical student in Germany. “He couldn’t go to medical school anymore because he didn’t know enough English, either,” she said, “so we worked there together.” Elsie and Jerry would go on to build a successful business and life for themselves and their two children in Portsmouth.

Elsie Hirsch never met her father’s cousin, the man whose efforts saved her and so many others from Nazi genocide, but there is a picture of him in her living room, inscribed in his own hand to her grandparents, his Onkel Adolph and Tante Ricke, from their nephew…Albert Einstein.

Elsie Hirsch is a resident at Beth Sholom Village’s Terrace.

Reprinted from the Madison Jewish News, Madison, WI, April 2018.

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16 | Jewish News | Senior Living | June 25, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org

taying active and consistent promotes cardiovascular health, muscle strength, and improved balance.

For anyone, regardless of age, who exercises, it is important to have an overall program that can be managed and completed based on current ability. When just starting out, for example, begin small, as even a short walk may be beneficial.

The Simon Family JCC is a great place to get active, offering group classes, specialized training regimens, and direct assistance if wanted or needed.

While many people generally exercise to lose weight and inches around the waist line, it is vital to view exercise as adding a better quality of life as one ages. Bodies do not get strong or healthy on their own. In fact, the human body needs consistent movement and resistance to keep it in good shape. Consider: anyone who can move, can improve. It is also important to remember to try not to place limitations on the greatest piece of equipment everyone has—their body.

A sample list of classes offered at the Simon Family JCC that are perfect for seniors, include: • Chair Yoga—Using a chair as an extension of

the body, participants explore a variety of postures and breathing techniques.

• Fit & Fab!—Low-impact class offering muscle conditioning, cardio fitness, and fun.

• Life Fit—A perfect all over workout that targets the entire body using balls, bands, and weights. All abilities welcome.

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• Zumba® Gold—All the elements of a Zumba® fitness party modified for active older participants or those new to fitness.

• Water therapy classes—These classes take place in the JCC’s indoor heated pools.

For more information, contact Tom Purcell, Simon Family JCC J-Fit Fitness & membership director at 757-321-2310 or tpurcell@ simonfamilyjcc.org.

Senior Living Benefits of Yoga for all ages The one cardinal ‘rule’ of Yoga is that it is your own practice. On your mat, there is no need to do more than you feel able to do comfortably.

Instructors are always able to assist you in adapting poses so that you benefit and enjoy your time in class.

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eople sometimes try Yoga for the first time because they’ve heard it’s good for balance and flexibility, but stick with it for a host of other reasons. Those who are willing to experiment a little, experience greater focus, concentration, and feelings of greater ease with themselves. No one needs to twist themselves into a pretzel shape, stand on their head, or chant to benefit from this ancient practice.

Gentle stretching, as well as attention to posture and breathing creates an increased sense of well being. Yoga can build strength in targeted areas by gradually increasing the intensity in different postures. Chronic pain is often eased. At the very least, being calmer, connected, and less scattered helps to cope with daily aches and pains that are unavoidable with aging.

The Simon Family JCC offers a variety of Yoga classes for all ages.

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Senior Living These Dutch Holocaust survivors have been madly in love for 70 years Cnaan Liphshiz

AMSTERDAM ( JTA)—More than 70 years have passed since Meijer van der

Sluis first laid eyes on the love of his life.

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He still remembers her short haircut and exactly what she wore that day.

“It was a black army coat,” van der Sluis, 91, of Amsterdam, recalls in a critically acclaimed documentary that aired last month in the Netherlands about his wife of 65 years, Tedje.

“It hit me hard. I fell in love. It glowed inside me,” he says of their meeting in 1945, when both were teenagers.

Seven decades later, the couple’s heartwarming story has been featured in media across the country because it’s moving, intimate and dramatic. But its intensity also personifies the collective trauma of a community that was hit worse than any other in Western Europe during the Holocaust, when the Nazis killed 75 percent of Dutch Jews.

Throughout the hourlong film titled Tedje & Meijer: The Promise of Love, the two nonagenarians hug, kiss, rub noses, and joke as they sit with their arms intertwined, each spouse with one palm on the other’s knee. They call each other “poepie,” or “sweetie” in Dutch, among other terms of endearment.

Their children, Ruben and Mirjam, tell the camera that their father cannot function when his wife is ill. Mirjam says he “becomes depressive.”

When he was working, Meijer would come home for lunch every day—an unusual habit in a country where lunch breaks are typically brief and feature room-temperature sandwiches at the workplace. But it wasn’t to be with the children, Mirjam says.

“I think it’s because they couldn’t spend an entire day apart,” she says of her parents.

“As long as I see Tedje around I’m happy, I’m glad,” Meijer says in the documentary. “Tedje has made me complete.”

While the couple love their children, their love for each other “was so strong, so intense” when the kids were growing up “that there was actually no space for anyone else between them. Not even their children,” Mirjam says.

But what begins as a documentary about the effects of an unusual family relationship evolves into an exploration into the tragic root of the special bond between the spouses—and the tragedy’s effects on at least two generations of Dutch Jews.

Formally, the home where the couple met was a high school called GICOL, for those whose secondary education was interrupted because of World War II. In reality, however, it functioned as an orphanage for Jewish children who survived in hiding while their entire families were murdered in the Holocaust.

“We had, of course, lost everyone,” Meijer says in the documentary, which was produced by the Jewish programming division of the EO public broadcaster.

“Almost all of us were orphans; we lost our entire families.”

He hid in the attic of his Amsterdam home when the Nazis took away his sister and parents; they all would be murdered. Meijer and his older brother survived the rest of the war hiding north of Amsterdam. His greatest regret in life is not being able to save his sister, as he says in the documentary.

“We had no home, nothing. No one we had known was alive,” he says.

Tedje was 12 when her father and sister were taken to the Westerbork concentration camp, and later to Auschwitz.

She was arrested later and asked to be sent there, too. But she was sent to another camp, and from there to Auschwitz. Her mother had died before the Holocaust, when Tedje was eight years old.

In one of the many articles written in the mainstream media about the film, its maker, Heleen Minderaa, told the NRC Handeslblad daily that being alone in the world had a defining effect on the relationship between Meijer and Tedje, whose real name is Rika. (Her father had nicknamed her his “teddy bear,” a nickname she adopted in adulthood, introducing herself as Tedje.)

“How they became intertwined is

Senior Living probably connected to their uprooting during the war,” Minderaa says. Their apparent inability to be without one another “feels like a solution to their problem of not belonging anywhere anymore.

They ground one another.”

Meijer says he used to feel the need to “offset the pain caused to his wife.” But, he adds, the desire is “naive.”

“It’s not something I could hope to do, I realize now that I am old,” he says.

Mirjam, the couple’s daughter, sees their partnership as a pact.

“They agreed that they were moving forward and were going to make something good out of it all,” she says. “They promised that to one another.”

Meijer says of his two children: “We’ve tried not to pin an Auschwitz identity on them. We tried not to be like those people who always talk about the persecution, about Auschwitz.”

But as with many Holocaust survivors whose entire family was murdered, moving forward from the Holocaust has proven to be an uphill battle.

“It felt like every night around the dinner table, Auschwitz was sitting

with us at the table for a bite to eat,” Mirjam says. Birthday parties featured “a five-minute talk about the weather, three minutes about food, and for the rest it was the war.”

At least once a week, Meijer would note the birthday of some relative who was murdered.

When Mirjam painted on her arm once, her mother asked her to stop because it made her “uncomfortable”—it reminded her of the tattoo of a number that the Nazis gave her at Auschwitz.

Ruben, the couple’s son, became a rabbi but moved to Zurich.

“In Dutch Jewry there’s a constant preoccupation with the Holocaust that I found suffocating and needed to get away from. Synagogues weren’t destroyed the same way there,” he says of Switzerland, which the Germans did not occupy. “It feels more comfortable.”

Back in Amsterdam, Meijer and Tedje give talks at school about the Holocaust.

“It’s not a happy story I’m about to tell you,” Meijer tells the students in his introduction. “But it does have a happy end.

We’re the happy end.”

New Jersey man, 92, a Holocaust survivor, fulfills dream of moving to Israel JERUSALEM ( JTA)—A 92-year-old New Jersey man fulfilled his dream of moving to Israel 71 years after he arrived in New York as a refugee from the Holocaust.

Jack Nasielski, of Edison, arrived Tuesday, June 12 at Ben Gurion Airport on a Nefesh B’Nefesh aliyah flight in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah & Integration, the Jewish Agency, Keren Kayemeth Le’Israel and JNF-USA. Nasielski, a native of Dessau, Germany, fled the Nazis as a child

through Poland, eventually being captured and sent to four Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz.

He was liberated from the Blachhamer camp in 1945.

He will live in the central Israel city of Rehovot near his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“Israel is the Jewish homeland. No one can persecute you for being a Jew in your own country,” Nasielski said upon arriving in Israel. “Today I am proud to be an Israeli and a real Jew. Israel is my new home and I love it.”

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JFS award-winning home health aide is dedicated to her clients

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hen Jewish Family Service of Tidewater’s nurse’s aide Tiphaney Powell speaks about her clients, she does so with a great deal of respect, love, and admiration. After all, when your clients are two 93-year-old women and a 96-year-old man, a lot of life lessons may be learned from them.

Powell was recently honored at JFS’ Employee Tiphaney Powell.

Appreciation Dinner as “Home Health Aide of the Year,” and for good reason.

“I feel it’s my job to love my clients—to make them comfortable and get them to smile,” she says.

As Powell shared stories of her clients, the mutual love and care is very evident.

“One of my clients has told me I can never leave her. She loves to talk and has confided in me. Though my gentleman client is very independent, he knows I’m there to assist him so he can continue to stay at home.”

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20 | Jewish News | Senior Living | June 25, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org

So dedicated to her clients, Powell spent four straight days with one of them during a blizzard this past winter. While the power was out for more than 15 hours, Powell even bundled up with her client to keep her warm so her body temperature wouldn’t drop.

Powell moved to Tidewater from Maryland in 1995 and finished her education at a local CNA program. She started working with JFS in 2003. “I can’t imagine doing anything else,” says Powell. “I love what I do and feel I’m called to do it.

My clients see me as their confidant and more of a listener than a caretaker.”

An active mother of four and grandmother of two “lights of her life,” Powell knows the importance of family. “When I’m with my clients, I try to provide the best care I can, as if they are my own family. I love my clients; they are a blessing to me,” she says.

T

op Guard Security, an award-winning, family-owned firm headquartered in Norfolk’s Ward’s Corner section, has more than 900 employees, making it one of the region’s largest employers.

“Top Guard has always actively pursued and sought to maximize employing seniors,” says Nicole Stuart, Top Guard president. According to Stuart, seniors, when coupled with veterans, have been the company’s success secret for 22 years.

“We find that life experience and a solid work ethic are the most important criteria for success.”

If there is a challenge with seniors, says Stuart, it is that this population, especially women, have almost never thought of working as a security professional because it is a non-traditional industry. Despite this, seniors tend to “make fantastic security officers and leaders,” says Stuart.

The fact that seniors are most likely to be polite and that they pay attention to detail, make them in general, and women in particular, perfect candidates for security roles. Because the firm specializes in securing corporate headquarters, commercial office buildings, and residential towers, officers are more similar to concierges with access control duties, than the role a police officer has in society.

In fact, BarBara Z. Murphy, MPA, AARP Foundation project director, says, “AARP has had a very successful working relationship with Top Guard Security since 2004. Over the years, Top Guard has hired many skilled, dependable, reliable seniors from AARP and we to recommend Top Guard Security as a great employer to all our enrollees.”

To learn more, visit www.topguardinc.com.

Senior Living

Plan for the unexpected when you’re healthy.

Move it or Lose it: Five moves to put Seniors back in the game

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or Americans 65 and older, falling can be the worst thing to happen to them, according to statistics from the National Council on Aging.

Consider: • One in three seniors experiences a significant fall each year; • Every 18 seconds, a senior is admitted into an emergency room after losing balance and hitting the ground; and • Every 35 minutes, an elderly person dies from a fall—the leading cause of death for seniors.

“The projected cost in health-care expenses for 2020 due to fall-related injuries in the United States is $55-billion,” says Karen Peterson, a therapist with multiple certifications, and author of Move With Balance: Healthy Aging Activities for Brain and Body. She’s also the founder and director of Giving Back, a nonprofit organization that grows and spreads programs that support senior health.

“It’s important for seniors to keep moving and learning, that’s what helps improve balance and coordination, and even helps build new neural pathways,” says Peterson, who emphasizes the cognitive importance to her workout programs.

These activities benefit all seniors, from 55 to 105.

Peterson says a fun, social program of games and activities that include exercises specifically designed for seniors helps them address multiple issues, including those that tend to keep seniors sedentary—which only lessens their strength and balance.

“Seniors of all ages need to continually work on improving their balance, coordination, strength, vision, and cognitive skills. When they do, they’re less likely to fall—and more able to enjoy life.”

Peterson suggests these moves, which address many different areas of the body: • The cross-crawl: After various light warmups, begin with the basic cross-crawl, which focuses on the fundamentals of balance. March in place, lifting the knees high. At the same time, reach across and touch the lifted knee with the opposite hand or elbow; alternate and keep going. This can be done sitting, standing or lying down. Once any of these exercises are mastered, Peterson says, participants should continue to challenge themselves. For even greater balance work, and to exercise the vestibular system, close your eyes and count backwards from 100

by threes. “It’s not fun if you’re not conquering a challenge,” she says.

• Forward toe-touch dancer: Many dance exercises are appropriate for seniors to improve motor skills, physical coordination, and cognition. If needed, use a chair for assistance. Place your feet shoulder-width apart. Now, simultaneously extend your left foot and your right arm forward. Keep your left toes pointed down, touching the floor; or for more difficulty, maintain the toes a few inches off the floor. Repeat this move with your left arm and right foot. Hold each pose for several seconds, and increase holding time.

• Sensory integration: the arrow chart: Look at an arrow chart and call out the direction indicated by each individual symbol. Then, thrust your arms in that direction; in other words, say and do what the arrow indicates. For an additional challenge, do the opposite of what the arrow indicates.

• Side-step walk: Walk sidestepping—bring your right foot across the left and step down three to five inches away from the left foot, ankles crossed. The closer the feet, the harder it is to balance. Alternate crossing the foot in front and then behind the other foot as you move along; repeat several times, then do the same with opposite feet. As a bonus challenge, try a reading exercise from a vision card, designed for stimulating the brain/visual system, while sidestepping.

• The cat jump: This activity is practice in case of a fall; the muscle memory of the movement gets etched into your body. Bend your knees in a squat. Jump a little off the ground with both feet, and land softly, like a cat, without jarring your body. Repeat until you are confident in your ability to prevent a spill.

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“Research shows that most falls are preventable,” Peterson says. “These and other exercises, performed regularly, are a great way to achieve safety and a revitalized lifestyle.”

jewishnewsva.org | June 25, 2018 | Senior Living | Jewish News | 21

Senior Living Holocaust survivor, 83, has belated bar mitzvah to remember perished family

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n 83-year-old Holocaust survivor living in northern Israel celebrated his bar mitzvah at a Safed synagogue in March.

A few dozen friends and family, as well as Safed’s police commissioner, accompanied Hanoch Shachar to a local synagogue, where many of them sang and danced with him before he had his first aliyah l’Torah—the act of reading from the holy book at synagogue after being called up to the bimah, or podium.

Jewish boys typically have the rite at 13, the age that Judaism deems a boy becomes a man.

“I saw something was missing in my life, a tree, a branch, real parents,” Shachar, who survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic, told the Israel Broadcasting Corp. during the event. “Every Jew has a bar mitzvah at their right age, and I never had one.”

His entire family perished in the Holocaust.

Shachar’s wife, Hannah, says she was “very excited because

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22 | Jewish News | Senior Living | June 25, 2018 | jewishnewsva.org

it’s his dream to have a bar mitzvah.”

Shachar says he brought a violin with him to synagogue, which had belonged to a boy who died in the Holocaust. The dead boy’s parents had given Shachar the violin when he was a boy.

“This violin is my way of asking Hashem why he took the talented boy who owned this instrument,” he told the film crew, using the Hebrew word for God. Shachar, a marathon runner who during the ceremony hoisted without effort the Torah scroll in its metal casing, says he prepared for the ceremony with his instructor Rabbi Shlomo Hadad, one of the city’s best-known cantors.

“I prepare many children and tutor them, but now I’ve had a privilege with this one, who is by far the oldest one I’ve ever tutored,” Hadad told the television crew.

Explore current events with JCC Seniors Thursdays, 10:30 am–12 pm Simon Family JCC A lively discussion on the latest news with the JCC Seniors takes place each week at the Simon Family JCC. Everything gets dis‑ cussed—from local to national to international news. New par‑ ticipants are always welcome.

Contact Bernice Greenberg at 757‑497‑0229 for further information.

Working Together to Provide a Continuum of Care We care about your care. Trust your loved one’s health and safety to the professional and devoted staff at Beth Sholom Village and Generations Home Health.

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