World’s oldest Jew dies at 112

Rosa Rein, believed to be the world’s oldest Jew, died about a month shy of her 113th birthday.

Rein, Switzerland’s oldest resident since September 2003, died Feb. 14 in her sleep at a home for seniors near Lugano that was her residence since a fall in 2001.

Rein was born in Poland in March 1897. She married a German man and the couple immigrated to Brazil in 1938. Rein’s husband died after their arrival in Brazil.

Rein remarried in 1949. The couple moved to the outskirts of Lugano in 1964 for health reasons; she was widowed again in 1973.

Celebrating her 112th birthday last year, Rein said she could still walk but had trouble with her hearing and vision.

Her mother was killed in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. — jta