Pretoria’s oldest Barmitzvah boy cancels celebration

SUZANNE BELLING

He had booked the shul, the hall, and a brocha for 19 July, the Hebrew date of his Barmitzvah, and was expecting family and friends from all over the world. Then COVID-19 hit and, much to Willie’s disappointment, everything had to be cancelled.

“I was in the process of re-learning my portion, Masei, for the third time, and had remembered most of it,” said this upright, dapper, groomed gentleman, with a sense of humour and a friendly word for everyone.

Why have a third Barmitzvah? Willie explains that life expectancy is supposed to be 70, therefore a second Barmitzvah is celebrated at the age of 83, and a third at 96. “As far as I know, I’m the only Pretorian who has reached this stage,” he says.

The word Masei (his original Barmitzvah parsha) means journeys, or stages of a journey, reminiscent of the stages and stopovers of the 40-year journey of the Children of Israel to the Promised Land. “I have had a memorable journey through life,” is Willie’s interpretation of his parsha.

Born in Claremont, Cape Town, he came up to the then Transvaal at the age of two. He attended Doornfontein Primary School and Athlone Boys’ High. “It wasn’t a very happy childhood for me. My father, who ran Boston Dry Cleaners, was very ill, and died from consumption at the age of 45.”

Willie married Rhona in 1950, and they settled in Pretoria, where he had been in the South African Air Force during World War II, and had lived since 1946. “I couldn’t fly as I had an impediment – a birthmark in the pupil of my eye – and one needed 20-20 vision to be a pilot. I landed up being an instructor.”

After the war, he worked for L. Feldman Tobacconists, and, “in my time, I was a heavy smoker until a four-way bypass and then an aorta bypass put paid to that. Now I walk about two kilometres a day to keep going.”

Rhona and Willie have four children: Julian; Pamela Witz; Darryl, who lives in Belgium; and Michael, who lives in Dubai. “I’m blessed with seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. I have lived in Jaffa for six-and-a-half years. Rhona died five years ago after suffering the effects of being attacked in their home. She survived the attack, but was in poor health thereafter.”

Willie has made lots of friends at Jaffa, and plays CDs of “golden oldies” for the residents every week. He says that he met “special friend” Sonia Gordon at a New Year’s Eve party at the home shortly after moving in there.

But he’s adamant about cancelling his Barmitzvah: “I’m not even scaling down a celebration. I don’t want to put people at risk.”

Brought up in an Orthodox home, Willie says he tries to abide by the rules of the home, and “be a good boy”. But, having been in the tobacco trade, he thinks banning cigarette sales during the COVID-19 lockdown is “a load of [expletive]”.