Evelyn Kozak, World’s Oldest Jew, Dies at 113

By Forward Staff June 14, 2013

A woman who claimed the title of the world’s oldest Jewish person died in New York at age 113, the Associated Press reported.

Evelyn Kozak, who was born on Aug. 14, 1899, died early Tuesday in a hospital after suffering a heart attack the day before, according to her granddaughter Brucha Weisberger.

Gerontology Research Group senior database administrator Robert Young told the AP Kozak was the world’s oldest documented Jewish person and the seventh-oldest person in the world.

Kozak, who was one of nine children, was born to a family that had immigrated to the U.S. from Russia to escape anti-Semitic attacks.

Kozak had five children, 10 grandchildren and nearly 30 great-grandchildren. She lived in New York, Perth Amboy, N.J., Miami and Pittsburgh

The death raises the tantalizing prospect that there are only a handful of people on earth today who were born before 1900.

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

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO