Samuel Baron’s 106th Birthday
This British Pathé newsreel presents “New York’s oldest man” at his claimed 106th birthday. A bearded resident of a Bronx Jewish nursing home stands behind a cake crowded with candles, makes a bracha over it, and sits under American flags and a Magen David. Pathé’s catalog does not name him. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency does: in mid-November 1934 it reported Samuel Baron’s surprise 106th birthday at the Home of the Daughters of Jacob. A City of New York death certificate later places that same man at the home until 1938.
British Pathé, “NEW YORKS - OLDEST MAN” (1934; asset 41708; Film ID 805.35). Sound newsreel, about 42 seconds. Pathé issued the item on 6 December 1934.
What Pathé filmed
Pathé’s shot list is short and concrete. A bearded man stands before a large birthday cake, surrounded by other residents and visitors. An interviewer asks his age; he answers that he is 106. Asked what he thinks of President Roosevelt, he says Roosevelt is “a good man.” He makes a bracha, blessing the birthday cake, under a Magen David banner and American flags. The room sings “Happy Birthday,” and he eats cake. Close shots show elderly people applauding.
Pathé’s paperwork note admits the item may belong to another issue. The surviving catalog still dates the year to 1934 and the issue to 6 December. The filmed room matches the public life of New York’s first strictly kosher, Shabbos-observant Jewish nursing home: the Home of the Daughters of Jacob, by then on its Bronx campus at 167th Street, Findlay Avenue, and Teller Avenue.
Identifying Samuel Baron
Pathé’s catalog never prints a name. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency does.
On Sunday, 18 November 1934, the Jewish Daily Bulletin reported that a surprise birthday party was being held that day for “Samuel Baron, 106, oldest resident at the Home of the Daughters of Jacob, 167th street and Findlay avenue,” given by the board of directors and its president, Mrs. Peter J. Schweitzer. Two days later, under the headline “Reb Samuel Dances Jig on His 106th Birthday,” JTA wrote that the Sunday afternoon party had taken place at the home where he had lived for the past three years; that he was born in Wilno, Lithuania, in 1828; and that the centenarian “danced a jig to prove he is still spry and active.” Pathé issued its newsreel of that celebration on 6 December 1934.
New York City death certificate no. 9783 records Samuel Baron’s death on 10 November 1938 at the Daughters of Jacob, 321 East 167th Street, Bronx. The form gives his age as 106 years, his residence as 137 Harrison Avenue, Brooklyn, his birthplace as Russia, his father’s name as Isaac Baron, and his mother’s maiden name as Sarah Rubrick. He had been admitted to the nursing home on 17 November 1932, which matches JTA’s “past three years” as of the 1934 party. Burial followed the next day at West New Hempstead (the Spring Valley area), consistent with the Find a Grave memorial at Congregation Sons of Israel Cemetery, whose stone reads Shmuel ben Yitzchak and ages him at 105. No JTA death notice for him turned up in the 1938 archive search.
The ages do not line up perfectly. Pathé’s title and interviewer claim 106 in 1934; JTA gives a Wilno birth year of 1828 (which would make him 106 that November); the 1938 death certificate again says 106; the grave says 105. Looking at the Pathé stills and the video, this writer’s opinion is plain: Baron’s beard and mustache show clear patches of black hair, not only white. A man truly past 100 would not ordinarily keep that much dark hair in the beard. On the evidence of the film, he must have been much younger than the 106 the interviewer, JTA, and the home claimed.
What the reel still preserves is the public claim the home and the newsreel made: New York’s oldest man, at a kosher Jewish nursing home, making a bracha over a birthday cake under a Magen David.
Where
Home of the Daughters of Jacob (Jewish nursing home; later Triboro Center)
321 East 167th Street / Findlay Avenue, Bronx
40.83250, -73.91252
Street View near the Findlay Avenue facade of the former Home of the Daughters of Jacob. Founded on the Lower East Side in 1896 as New York’s first fully kosher, Shabbos-observant Jewish nursing home, the institution moved to this wheel-shaped Bronx campus in 1920. Pathé filmed Baron’s birthday inside that world.
The home and what followed
By 1934 the Bronx nursing home was already a landmark of Orthodox communal care: a synagogue large enough for family simchas, kosher kitchens, and a public reputation for very old residents.
Baron lived another four years after the newsreel. He died at the home in November 1938 and was buried in Rockland County. The Pathé clip is less than a minute long. It still catches a sound-era American Jewish birthday: Yiddish-accented English, a bracha over birthday cake under a Magen David, applause from other residents, and a polite word for Franklin Roosevelt in the first year of the New Deal.
Timeline
- 1896
- Home of the Daughters of Jacob founded on the Lower East Side as New York’s first strictly kosher, Shabbos-observant Jewish nursing home.
- c. 1890
- Samuel Baron’s death certificate implies about 48 years in the United States by 1938 (arrival around 1890).
- 1920
- The home moves to its Bronx campus at 167th Street, Findlay, and Teller Avenues.
- 1828 (claimed)
- JTA reports Baron born in Wilno (Vilna), Lithuania.
- 17 Nov 1932
- Baron admitted to the Daughters of Jacob (per death certificate).
- 18 Nov 1934
- Surprise 106th birthday party at the home (JTA); Pathé issues the newsreel as “New York’s oldest man” on 6 December 1934.
- 10 Nov 1938
- Samuel Baron dies at the Daughters of Jacob, aged 106 on the certificate (105 on the grave); buried the next day near Spring Valley.