[3] His father, Hirsch Weinman was a Jewish cantor, and initially he wanted to enter the rabbinate.

[4] Early in his career, he wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name "Benzion Weinman".

[2] He immigrated to the United States in 1920 after the death of his father, and started by teaching Hebrew language.

[2] His first large scale painting was Friday Evening (1933), depicting his family's Sabbath dinner table.

"[8] From the 1930s to the 1960s, Ben-Zion taught art (through the Works Progress Administration) at Cooper Union and other locations.