{"id":33864,"date":"2025-12-17T09:03:37","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T14:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=33864"},"modified":"2025-12-31T13:31:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T18:31:03","slug":"another-100th-birthday-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/17\/another-100th-birthday-party\/","title":{"rendered":"ANOTHER 100TH BIRTHDAY PARTY"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nHere’s my latest essay from the <\/em>Cleveland Plain Dealer\u00a0 . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

Dick Van Dyke turned 100 on Saturday. That’s no big deal — in my world. Last month my klezmer band played a 100th birthday party — our fourth in three years. There was a chair placed prominently in the middle of the dance floor, to lift the birthday \u201cgirl\u201d for \u201cHava Nagila.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said to myself, \u201cNo way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Correct: No way. We did not lift the celebrant on a chair. But the birthday \u201cgirl,\u201d Etty Hoffman of Beachwood, did dance. She was out there on the dance floor. She boogied. And she gave a moving speech afterward, touching on more than five generations of her family, including \u201cmommy and daddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly 10,000 Americans turn 100 each year, according to the Pew Research Center. The United States has the second-most number of centenarians in the world. Japan is first.<\/p>\n

After the hora, I asked a dancer — Ms. Hoffman\u2019s niece Joyce — if she was going to live forever. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d Joyce said. \u201cMe or my aunt?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou. Do you assume you\u2019re going to make it 100, too?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m planning on it!\u201d she said. Joyce is in her 70s and plays flute, does yoga, lifts weights, walks a lot, and is skinny. Bonus: Joyce\u2019s mom is 103. She\u2019s Etty\u2019s older sister. (Joyce\u2019s mother was at the party, too.)<\/p>\n

My dad made it to 68. Shvak<\/em>. (Yiddish for weak<\/em>). My mom died at 83. Better. A year before my father died, I interviewed him; I said, \u201cYou don\u2019t talk much about your mother. Do you ever think about your mother?\u201d I annoyed my dad. He said, \u201cOf course I think about my mother!\u201d My dad\u2019s mother had single-handedly run the family\u2019s candy store on Kinsman Road at East 151st Street. My dad\u2019s father had been hit by a May Company truck in 1924 and spent most of his time hanging out at the pool hall after the accident.<\/p>\n

\"\"

At Julia Stratton’s gravesite in 2020, on the 100th anniversary of her birth. (Julia Stratton, 1920-2004.) From left: Lucy, Bert, Jack, Ted Stratton<\/p><\/div>\n

At Ms. Hoffman\u2019s birthday party, my band played: \u201cMy Girl\u201d by the Temptations; \u201cI\u2019ve Just Seen a Face\u201d by the Beatles; Tin Pan Alley classics; klezmer instrumentals; and some Yiddish songs. The partygoers applauded our wide-ranging set list. At a 100th birthday party, everybody is 100% mellow. A 100th birthday party is not a wedding — no anxious bride. It is not a bar mitzvah — no sullen 13-year-olds. There is no kvetching, period.<\/p>\n

In the 1920s, Ohio-born vaudeville clarinetist Ted Lewis popularized the phrase, \u201cIs everybody happy?\u201d And yes, everybody was happy at Ms. Hoffman\u2019s party. She was born in 1925 and grew up in the Glenville neighborhood and attended synagogue at the Cleveland Jewish Center (now Cory United Methodist Church) on East 105th Street. Etty was in the temple\u2019s Confirmation class of 1941.<\/p>\n

Her 100th birthday celebration was at Park Synagogue in Pepper Pike. Park Synagogue is a direct outgrowth of the Cleveland Jewish Center. Same congregation, different building. Ms. Hoffman has been a member of Park Synagogue since 1930. I wonder how many relatives at Ms. Hoffman\u2019s party think they\u2019ve inherited the family\u2019s longevity gene.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll find out.<\/p>\n

Mary Tyler Moore died at 80. Keep that in mind.<\/p>\n

And happy birthday to Dick Van Dyke, Etty Hoffman, and everybody trying to emulate them.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Link to <\/em>Plain Dealer article here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Here’s my latest essay from the Cleveland Plain Dealer\u00a0 . . . Dick Van Dyke turned 100 on Saturday. That’s no big deal — in my world. Last month my klezmer band played a 100th birthday party — our fourth in three years. There was a chair placed prominently in the middle of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33864"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33918,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33864\/revisions\/33918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}