[2][3][4] Zalman Bernstein was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York in 1926.
[5][4] At the age of eighteen, he joined the United States Navy and fought in the Second World War.
[5] In the 1980s, he became an Orthodox Jew and dropped his English name, Sanford, for his Hebrew one, Zalman.
[3] He attended Lincoln Square Synagogue and became a friend of its rabbi, Shlomo Riskin.
[3] He also founded the Jewish organizations Avi Chai Foundation and Tikvah Fund.