He has 3 Masters Degrees and a J.D. and over 30 years of experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. On a personal basis, he is a gay Native New Yorker, born to two German Holocaust Survivors. In 2005 he returned a Torah scroll that his grandfather brought to America, and he became a dual American/German citizen in 2007. His other grandfather and father were arrested on Kristallnacht and sent to Dachau. His father later returned as a U.S. Army soldier and liberated Dachau as part of the Third Infantry.