Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Till 120! (Been There, Done That)

Y-Net reports:

Does the oldest woman in the world live in Israel? The clerks at the local Interior Ministry branch in Hadera were stunned to discover Monday that one of the applicants for a renewal of her identity card claims to have been born 120 years ago, in 1888.

The woman, an elderly resident from the village of Jisr az-Zarka, arrived at the Hadera branch to file for a new identity card after losing her old one. On her application form, the woman stated that she had been born in 1888.

An Interior Ministry official, however, said that the purported age of the Israeli Arab woman is not necessarily correct. “The woman was born during the Ottoman period, a time when the population registry was very inaccurate. It is quite possible that she is younger than reported, or even older,” he explained.

Hat tip: JTA

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.