TORONTO — Mel Cederbaum, director of Toronto Workman’s Circle, is in the process of archiving the 100-year-old organization’s pictures and documents with the help of someone who’s been there almost since the beginning: 99-year-old Molly Haar.
Molly Haar, 99, designs and stitches Yiddish pillows
In preparation for an upcoming get-together – Oct. 17 and 18 – of Workman’s Circle’s Camp Yungvelt campers, former Peretz school students, Workman’s Circle members, and anyone else interested in celebrating the organization’s 100th anniversary, Cederbaum is preparing a historical display, assisted by Haar, who is identifying photographs.
“Molly worked at camp and at the shule [Yiddish school], and she has an extraordinary memory. Not only does she remember everyone, she can relate stories about them that we can’t repeat here.”
Born in New York City in June 1909, Haar, who moved here as a child, is still a U.S. citizen. She said that Yiddish was her second language, which she spoke with her husband, Moshe, a Yiddish and history teacher who died in 1966.
Haar, who has no children, said she has never remarried because her husband, whom she met in Detroit and was married to for 26 years – she returned to Toronto in the mid-1970s – was “too good a husband. He was handsome and intellectual, and he knew about everything, from baseball to theatre. Forty years later, I still miss him.”
She has a box of Yiddish letters from her husband, she said, that he wrote when he was drafted in 1943. “What other soldier wrote his wife in Yiddish?”
Describing herself as a “perfectly ordinary woman,” Haar, who was dressed in a red sweater and matching scarf and had red, manicured nails, said, “I don’t dress like an old woman. I like tailored things.”
She never thinks about her age, she said, adding that “my two best friends are 46 and 70. Maybe that’s my secret to staying young.
“I don’t go out much, but I did drive until I was 90. I watch the news, shop on the Shopping Channel, do crossword puzzles, and read. I love a good story. I don’t have a computer. I get a phone call and I make a phone call. That’s all I need.”
An avid reader of the Jewish Forward and The Canadian Jewish News, Haar thinks U.S. President Barack Obama “is terrific, but he’ll have to be a magician to do what he has to do. He’s bright and intelligent, and he’s head and heels over that other one.”
Her favourite hobby is designing and sewing needlepoint pillows, which she adorns with Yiddish expressions.
“I took up this hobby when my husband died. I must have made at least 100 pillows. He would have been pleased with the Yiddish sayings. This type of thing hasn’t been done in years. Workman’s Circle wants them for their archival display.”
She used to be a good cook, she said, and now she teaches her caregivers to cook such dishes as sweet and sour meatballs. “We also buy gefilte fish, and then we re-season and re-cook it. Scrambled eggs and soup is enough for me now, though. I also like a glass of wine, but only once in a while.”
Haar lived with her brother until late last year, when he died suddenly at age 90, and she still lives in her own condominium, where she gets part-time help.
She said she has nothing planned for her 100th birthday, “but I think my friends might be planning something.”
Those interested in the Workman’s Circle get-together – which Haar said she plans to attend – should contact Cederbaum at 41-787-2081 or [email protected] for more details.
