Family Focus

Never Too Late

92-year-old bar mitzvah "boy" celebrates with service at Danto.

Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News

W

hen Harry R. Glassman of Oak
Park was 13 in 1930, he was
working on an ice wagon in Los
Angeles helping to support his five sisters and
three brothers. He never attended Hebrew
school, and was too busy to even think about
a bar mitzvah.
Glassman, 92, made up for it Nov. 23 by
becoming a bar mitzvah at a morning cer-
emony at the Danto Health Care Center in
West Bloomfield, with several family mem-
bers and a number of Danto residents in the
"congregation." It was the third bar mitzvah
in Danto's 13-year history, according to Rabbi
Yerachmiel Rabin, the facility's director of
special care.
Smartly attired in a dark suit, the spry
Glassman greeted visitors — one of whom
asked how many white envelopes he had
received — looking fit despite a recent bout
with bronchitis and pneumonia that had put
him in Danto for recovery before taking up
residence in an apartment near the Oak Park
JCC.
He reminisced about his life as a World War Rabbi Yerachmiel Rabin, Harry Glassman reading Torah and
II hero, champion walker and devoted father
Rabbi David Polter
of three and grandfather of four.
With the full ceremonial trappings of a
synagogue bar mitzvah, the event went off without a hitch
"I was bleeding so much that the blood was pouring
and Glassman recited his part perfectly. Rabbis Rabin and
out of my shoe he said, "but another soldier was hit
David Polter officiated.
worse than me. I remember him saying, 'Don't leave
"It took him only a few weeks to
me here!' I carried him down the
prepare for this," Rabin said.
hill to safety behind our lines. We
"We're all happy to be here and
were both bleeding all over the
we're very proud of my father',' added
place."
Glassman's daughter, Lea Trager of
For his heroism, Glassman was
Waterford. "I know my mother is with
awarded the Bronze Medal and a
us in spirit!'
Purple Heart; he then spent eight
Glassman's wife, Margaret, died
months recuperating in a hospi-
at 81 in 1999. He met her in San
tal. "I wanted to return to combat,
Francisco when he was in the army
but they wouldn't let me — no
and she was in the women's air corps. Harry's War World II Army medals
matter how much I pleaded with
Their two sons live in Denver, Colo.
them," bemoaned Glassman, who
"I was deferred from military
had become a technical sergeant.
service for a while because I was working and still helping
"But they converted me into a medic and I worked in a
support our large family;' he recalled, "but then I went into
field hospital behind the lines."
the army for three years!'
The newlywed Glassmans couldn't find a suitable
place to live in Los Angeles after the war, he said, so
Acts Of Heroism
they moved to Detroit where Glassman had relatives.
Landing on Omaha beach in Normandy, France, six
He worked in a Ford Motor Company plant briefly,
days after D-Day (June 6, 1944), Glassman was shot in
then joined the A&P food store warehousing operation.
the leg while his 313th Infantry, 97th Division tried to
"My main career was as a warehouseman; I loved the
capture a hill from the Germans.
job," he said.

82

December 10 • 2009

Lea Trager with her father, Harry Glassman, and

Rabbi Rabin

He retired in 1980.
Glassman used softball, volleyball and walking as
his main forms of exercise; and he won several medals
and ribbons in walking competitions. Until recently, he
still walked at least one mile a day.
"This is a wonderful story:' Rabbi Rabin told the
Danto audience.
"Harry Glassman was a brave soldier who helped
beat the Nazis in World War II to help preserve free-
dom in America. Now, at the age of 92, he finally gets
to have a bar mitzvah on a beautiful morning in West
Bloomfield, Michigan!'