Alexander Imich, World’s ‘Oldest Man,’ Dies at 111

Image by youtube
Alexander Imich, a Holocaust survivor cited as the world’s ‘oldest man,’ has reportedly died at 111.
Imich died peacefully at his home in a New York-area assisted living facility Sunday, NBC News reported.
Imich, who was born in Poland in 1903 and survived a Soviet Gulag, emigrated to the United States in the 1950s.
He turned 111 in February and assumed the “oldest living” title last month, according to the Gerontology Research Group of Torrance, California.
Imich was far from being the oldest living person, however. Sixty-six women are older than him, and the oldest of them, Misao Okawa of Japan, is 116.
A sparse eater whose favorite foods are chicken and chocolate, Imich said in a halting interview in his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that he credits good genes for his long life. His father, he said, lived into his 90s.
“But the life you live is equally or more important for longevity,” he said.
He grew up in a well-to-do family of secular Jews in Czestochowa in southern Poland.
Imich, who edited an anthology called “Incredible Tales of the Paranormal” in 1995 at the age of 92, recently said he was still thinking about unfinished business.
“There are things I would like to achieve,” he said. “But I’m not quite clear about what and how.”
He told the New York Times in April that holding the record for world’s oldest man is “Not like it’s the Nobel Prize” and that “I never thought I’d be that old.” He said he never drank alcohol. He and his wife, who died in 1986, never had any children.
Imich willed his body to the Mount Sinai Medical Center for study.
With Reuters and JTA
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.