Three days before his 13th birthday Aryeh Sadeh was taken to a ghetto and therefore, never celebrated his bar mitzvah. Today, Monday, 20 Cheshvan 5773, following a significant delay, Mr. Sadeh, now 84, did just that, surrounded by his family and closest friends.

Born in Poland to family Bitrosfeld, Aryeh was taken with his infirmed mother to the Krakow Ghetto during WWII. His mother died in the ghetto and he managed to flee before the Nazis took him to a concentration camp. He was adopted by a kindhearted woman who hid him from the Nazis, later to become one of Schindler’s children, among the many saved from death by the Righteous Gentile. He arrived in Palestine in 1946 and after many years he told his wife how he never had a bar mitzvah.

The family decided it was high time and arrangements began for the surprise bar mitzvah, which of course included an aliyah to the Torah. Arrangements were made on Monday morning to take him to shul and have him recite the brochos despite being significantly visually impaired.

The bar mitzvah delegation traveled to the Achuzat Beit HaKerem senior citizens home in Yerushalayim where Aryeh and his wife reside, and the seudas mitzvah was held. Chassidic music was on the agenda for that is Aryeh’s favorite, but just the quiet niggunim he explained.

His wife proudly told the media that he was clueless and Baruch Hashem Aryeh celebrated his bar mitzvah with family and friends, a total surprise following a 71-year delay.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)