[1] Shmuel Kaminetsky's parents emigrated from the USSR to Israel due to Soviet religious persecution in 1946.

Kaminetsky was born in Kfar Chabad, Israel, in 1965.

In 1981 he went to the United States where he graduated from the Lubavitcher hassidic Rabbinical College of America in New Jersey.

In 1989, he married Hanna Lipsker; they had six daughters and three sons.

[2] Focus magazine[further explanation needed] listed him as an agent of foreign influence.