{"id":321,"date":"2004-12-07T07:22:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-07T14:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/?p=321"},"modified":"2004-12-07T07:22:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-07T14:22:00","slug":"a-slice-of-life-from-my-j-school-beat-crown-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/2004\/12\/07\/a-slice-of-life-from-my-j-school-beat-crown-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"A slice of life from my j-school beat: Crown Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/12\/07\/nyregion\/07rabbi.html?oref=login&#038;8hpib\">At 105, the Rabbi Doesn&#8217;t Sleep Late<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><I>A century of poring over ancient Jewish texts has carved deep circles under Rabbi Yehuda Chitrik&#8217;s eyes. Decades of Sabbath- table storytelling have left him speaking softly and seldom. At 105 years old, he seems almost mortal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is not so good,&#8221; his daughter Shaindel Schneerson, 72, said the other night. &#8220;Right now, he&#8217;s saying his morning prayers&#8221; &#8211; she reported after dinner. &#8220;In the evening, he is doing this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But even at &#8220;not so good,&#8221; Rabbi Chitrik rises at 5 a.m. to study, attends synagogue at least twice a day, teaches a class and works with his regular study partner: a whippersnapper rabbi from Crown Heights named Meir Itkin, who is 95.<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi Chitrik has learned directly from the last three leaders of the Lubavitch movement. He has a keen knowledge of Torah, the Talmud, and other texts that his relatives believe has contributed to his longevity. But it is his storytelling that has made him a fixture in the Lubavitcher community.<\/p>\n<p>His grandson Ari Chitrik, 51, calls him &#8220;a walking encyclopedia of Hasidic tales.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And a great-grandson, Eliezer Zalmanov, 25, says, &#8220;He can repeat stories word for word that he heard 50 years ago.&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 105, the Rabbi Doesn&#8217;t Sleep Late: A century of poring over ancient Jewish texts has carved deep circles under Rabbi Yehuda Chitrik&#8217;s eyes. Decades of Sabbath- table storytelling have left him speaking softly and seldom. At 105 years old, he seems almost mortal. &#8220;He is not so good,&#8221; his daughter Shaindel Schneerson, 72, said the other night. &#8220;Right now, he&#8217;s saying his morning prayers&#8221; &#8211; she reported after dinner. &#8220;In the evening, he is doing this.&#8221; But even at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-new-york-city","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4uks-5b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cyrusfarivar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}