Rabbi Pinny Marozov visiting the oldest man in America, Alexander Imich, age 111, on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Photo: Beth Sarafraz.

Jewish New Yorker Alexander Imich, on the planet for 111 years and 91 days, so far, is now the oldest living man in the world after Italian Arturo Licata died last month, a week before his 112th birthday, the UK Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.

It’s true that women live longer than men, with 66 older than Imich, including Misao Okawa from Japan, who is 116, the oldest woman in the world and oldest human on the planet today, according to California’s Gerontology Research Group.

Imich, born in Poland in 1903 and a resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side since 1965, was re-introduced to Judaism this year by Chabad Rabbi Pinny Marozov, who runs the Chabad of Coney Island, Brooklyn, with his wife, Chaya, who heard about Imich, as the oldest man in the U.S. The rabbi affixed mezzuzas to Imich’s doors and prayed with him at his home and while he was in the hospital after a fall.

Imich earned a PhD in chemistry and then survived the Holocaust, spending two years in a Russian labor camp near the White Sea. After the war, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1951 with his wife, Wela, who passed away in 1986. Imich spent his career working as a chemist, ultimately trying to prove to other scientists that the neshama, the soul, survives physical death. In 1995, at the age of 92, he edited and published a book called ‘Incredible Tales of the Paranormal’ about that thesis.

Watch a video below about Imich: