NorthJersey.com: Berta Rosenberg dies - was the world's oldest Jew

Washington Heights resident Berta Rosenberg has died. She was the world's oldest Jew.

Oldest Jewish person in the world dies
BY JAY LEVIN

The woman whom researchers say was the oldest Jewish person in the world died Wednesday at age 112.

Berta Rosenberg, who lived in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, occasionally attended synagogue in Cliffside Park, where her 84-year-old daughter, Ruth Hammer, lives.

“She gave from the heart and was such a good person,” Hammer said. “I never heard a loud tone from my mother.”

Rosenberg’s birth date — Sept. 5, 1896 — was confirmed in 2006 by Robert Young, senior claims researcher for the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group and a senior consultant to Guinness World Records.

At the time of her death, Rosenberg was the world’s 19th oldest person and the oldest Jewish person, Young said Thursday.

The former Berta Blum was born in Frankenau, Germany. She and her family immigrated to the United States in September 1938, two months before Kristallnacht, the Nazis’ coordinated attack on Jewish people in Germany.

She worked as a cleaning lady in New York upon arriving in the United States and later developed a business selling housewares, her daughter said.

Hammer attributed her mother’s longevity to a diet of fresh foods and the family’s decision to keep her in her Washington Heights apartment, rather than a nursing home.

Rosenberg was predeceased by her husband, Moritz Rosenberg, and a son, Theodore Rosenberg.

The funeral will be held tomorrow at Gutterman and Musicant Jewish Funeral Directors in Hackensack. Burial will be in Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus.