Israeli woman dies, had 1,400 descendants

JERUSALEM, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- A 99-year-old Jerusalem woman who had 1,400 descendants knew all of them, one of her grandchildren said.

Rachel Krishevsky, who married her cousin, Yitzhak, before age 19 and lived to see her great-great grandchildren, died Saturday, Ynetnews.com reported. The couple had 11 children, seven sons and four daughters.

Krishevsky instilled in her children the belief that children are a great joy and that commitment to be fruitful and multiply was adopted by her descendants. They in turn produced 150 children who in turn had more than 1,000 children. By the time Krishevsky died, she also had a few hundred great-great-grandchildren.

"Grandma was a God-fearing woman her whole life, and her door was always open to the homeless and poor near the market who were looking for a place to eat," said the grandchild of Krishevsky, who lived almost all her life near the Mahane Yehuda, Jerusalem's open-air market.