Murray Gerstenhaber was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Pauline (née Rosenzweig; who was born in Romania ; died in 1978) and Joseph Gerstenhaber (who was born in 1892 in Romania; died in 1975). His father was trained as a jeweler, "but being unable to find work in this line he [took] employment in a factory making airplane precision instruments”. As to his mother, in 2015 he noted: