Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Oldest Living Jew Dies at 111

Fannie Forman Buten witnessed it all: the roaring ‘20s, two world wars, the women’s and civil rights movements, JFK, Elvis, airplanes, moon landings, MTV and the Internet. She was also believed to be the oldest living Jewish person in the world up until her death last week. Buten, who was born in Austria in 1899 and spent her final years in suburban Philadelphia, was 111 years old when she died of a stroke on September 24.

Buten was named the “oldest living” Jewish person “whose age had been verified,” Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group told JTA. She was also the oldest person in Pennsylvania and 37th oldest in the world.

Over the course of her life, Buten was a daughter, wife and mother; a charitable volunteer and jokester. After graduating from the Philadelphia High School for Girls, she worked as a secretary, married and had children, and gained notoriety for her coconut milk sponge cakes — and for hitting a hole-in-one on the Green Valley Country Club golf course when she was in her 70s. Buten leaves behind 12 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and an historical perspective that few will ever fully understand. As Buten’s daughter, Marjorie Steinberg, told JTA, her mother “always lied about her age … so this [media attention] probably wouldn’t please her.”

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.