90-Year-Old Couple Celebrates Bar/Bat Mitzvah

It was more than 75 years late, but Lee and Lillian Croenwalt, of Flushing, finally had their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs on Sunday.

“It’s never too late,” Lee Croenwalt, 90, said.

Lee said a prayer in front of the Torah, while Lillian said the blessing over the bread to a crowd of about 25 people at the Chabad House in Flint Township.

At the start of the service, Rabbi Yisroel Weingarten wrapped tiffilin around Lee’s arm and head. The leather material with Torah verses inside signifies the action of prayer and intellect, and is first worn at one’s Bar Mitzvah. A Bar Mitzvah signifies becoming a man in the Jewish community.

Lee also was dressed the traditional Jewish attire of a talit, a prayer shawl, and a kippa, a skull cap.

There were plenty of Mazel Tovs, singing and well wishes as each completed their prayer.

“You look like you’re 13,” joked Weingarten as he was congratulating Lee. “Maybe 14.”

His wife added, “You’ve become a man at 90.”

When Lee turned 13, which is the traditional age for a Bar Mitzvah celebration, he had to work at a jewelry manufacturer in downtown Flint. It was in 1934, the middle of the Great Depression.

“We all had to work to put food on the table,” he said.

He never had time to study for his Bar Mitzvah.

“It was something I missed in my life,” he said, adding that the celebration has made him become a better Jew.

Lilliah, 89, who also grew up in Flint, said her family was too poor to have her Bat Mitzvah.

She said Wingarten approached them about the service. She said she was glad she did it.

“I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “The feeling inside me I can’t express at all.”

Weingarten called the Croenwalt’s “young at heart” and enjoyed working with them. He said it’s never too late to have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

They were the oldest people he ever Bar Mitzvah-ed, he said. He likened the feeling to a 50th wedding anniversary of parents.

“They are just wonderful people and are Jewishly-inclined,” he said.

Lee said he’s not done with his learning yet.

“If I live long enough, I hope to learn Hebrew,” he said.