Home

Name: Dr. Norman Reitman

Occupation: Retired in 1989 after 50-year practice as cardiologist in New Brunswick, where he was chief of staff at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

Address: Highland Park

Age: 98 this January

Family: Widower of Syril Strauss for eight years. Three children and seven grandchildren. Son Milton is also a cardiologist married to Ellen Wasser. They have two children and live in Long Island. Milton's son David continues the physician family line as a pediatrician treating adolescents. Daughter Lois is married to Stephen Cartmell, a retired policeman. They live in Hillsborough and have three children.

Daughter Allison is a social worker for the Princeton School district married to David Politziner. They have two children.

Community activities: Chairman of the Board of Governors at Rutgers for one four-year term in 1977. Member of Congregation Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple since 1938. Member of President's Council of New Brunswick Cultural Center.

Hobbies: Attending events at Rutgers, the State Theater, George Street Playhouse, and at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple.

Self-portrait: "I'm a very young old man with a mental age of 60 and body 95 years old after a fractured hip in 2003. Now, although I'm recovered, it's not the same."

Motto: "This above all: to your own self be true."

Greatest accomplishment: "Meeting my wife Syril, being married for 63 years, and raising a lovely family of three children, seven grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Now there are eight doctors in the family."

Bad habits: "None. I don't drink, smoke, or fool around with women. I had an idyllic marriage."

Favorite TV: "Watching programs on Channel 13. I don't like the murder mysteries."

Favorite food: Fish.

Best childhood memory: "Reading in the library when I was a very young boy. Today they'd call me a nerd. When I was 9 or 10, I started walking to the library and taking out the books at the Jersey City Library and Bayonne Library. I was always in the library."

People don't know that I... "Met my wife Syril at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, [which is] celebrating its 150th anniversary this month. There was a Rutgers College dance to go to and I had to have a date. So I went to where the girls were -- at the temple. I met my wife in 1930 when I was a junior at Rutgers. I still had to complete my undergraduate work before starting and completing medical school. When I broached the subject of marriage, she said, ‘If you'll wait, I'll wait.' We got married eight years later. She graduated from The New Jersey College for Women and taught kindergarten until 1940."

The last book I read: "The Last Symbol" by Dan Brown. "I've read three of his books and enjoyed them."

The biggest asset in the local Jewish communities: "The Jewish Federation of Middlesex County because it covers all the Jewish organizations in the entire county."

The biggest problem in the local Jewish communities: "Getting to know each other because we have so many Jewish groups -- Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist."

If I had more time I would... "When I was practicing medicine I was always jealous of the fact that I didn't have enough time to do things. Now I have time to do things and I use it reading, and I'm with my family more than when I was in practice."