 He married Bernice Rafeedie, a Palestinian-American in 1966 and had two children, Michael and Michelle, along with scores of grandchildren and step-children.Shaheen died on July 9, 2017 at the age of 81.People who praised his work include Ralph Nader, who said that Shaheen "provided the incriminating evidence directly from the biased media, unedited", and Ali Mirsepassi, director of New York University’s Iranian Studies Initiative, wrote in 2012 that "Jack Shaheen approaches his critical work with little personal or intellectual bitterness, moral arrogance or intellectual superiority."