HAIFA, Israel, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- After the death this week of the world's oldest man in Japan, the title will likely be passed on to 112-year-old Holocaust survivor Yisrael Kristal in Haifa, Israel.
Kristal's relatives were contacted by the Gerontology Research Group, a U.S.-based organization keeping records on the world's "supercentenatirans," or those older than 110. To be certified as the world's oldest man, the Polish-born Kristal must provide documentation of his age, something he lacks prior to the age of 25, when he was married.
A candy maker from Lodz, Poland, born in 1903, he was sent to the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz in 1944. His wife died there.
He remarried in 1947, settled in Israel with his second wife in 1950 and resumed his career as a confectioner. The son of a Torah scholar, Kristal has been religiously observant all his life.
Interviewed in 2012 at the age of 109, Kristal said the grace of God was the sole key to longevity.
"My father is someone who is always happy. He is optimistic, wise, and he values what he has," his daughter, Shula Kuperstoch, told the Jerusalem Post. "His attitude to life is everything in moderation. He eats and sleeps moderately, and says that a person should always be in control of their own life and not have their life control them."
The Gerontology Research Group says the world's current oldest woman is Susannah Mushatt Jones of Alabama, who is 116.
