At 102, a Normandy Veteran Who Fled Nazi Germany Dances on Simchat Torah in Jerusalem with a Child Nearly a Century Younger

Walter Bingham, who will turn 103 in a few months, danced during the Simchat Torah Hakafot at the Chabad synagogue in Jerusalem's Rehavia–Shaarei Chesed neighborhood this holiday season—which concluded in Israel on Saturday, October 3, 2026—taking the hand of a young child from the community, two Jews dancing together with nearly 100 years between them. Bingham took part in the Normandy invasion as a British soldier and helped liberate Europe from Nazi Germany, and he remains active and remarkably fit. His friend Udi Hershler, a lecturer in philosophy and Jewish history who stood beside him, called the spontaneous moment the most moving of the night.

A man who fought the Nazis found himself dancing in the same circle as children whose great-grandfather he could be, and the Torah became a shared bond that transcended age, opinions, and outlooks. The experience reached its peak when Bingham stood beneath the tallit alongside dozens of children for the traditional "Kol HaNe'arim" aliyah, a moment he had specifically requested—"an experience of eternal togetherness, connecting generations across thousands of years," Hershler said.

Bingham also shared memories of Simchat Torah from his youth. He left Germany in 1939 at age 15 on the Kindertransport, and recalled that by the early 1930s the celebrations in his hometown of Mannheim had already been pushed almost underground, from a proud, public expression of Jewish joy to something marked quietly, out of fear. He deeply regrets having almost no memories of celebrating Simchat Torah with his beloved father, who was murdered by the Nazis in 1941. Nearly 90 years later, in Israel, he was dancing with children—three years after the Simchat Torah massacre of the Jewish year 5784, the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust—giving new meaning, Hershler said, to the Haggadah's words: "And it is this that has stood by our fathers and us." (INN/VFI News)

“They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green…” – Psalm 92:14

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