Mark Zuckerberg Family History

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14th, 1984 to Edward and Karen Zuckerberg in White Plains, New York.

He and his three sisters were raised in a Reform Jewish household in Dobbs Ferry, New York.  Mark’s father ran a dental practice attached to the family’s home. His mother worked as a psychiatrist before the birth of the couple’s four children.

Mark developed an early interest in computers.  When he was twelve, he used Atari BASIC to create a messaging program they named Zucknet.  While still in high school, he made an early version of the music software Pandora.

Facebook.  Mark enrolled as an undergraduate at Harvard University in 2002.  There he and three friends worked on a social networking site which was to be called Facebook.  In 2004 Mark dropped out of Harvard and moved this company to Palo Alto, California.

By the end of 2004 Facebook had one million users.  By 2013 Facebook had made the Fortune 500 list for the first time, making Mark at the age of 28 the youngest CEO on the list. The rest is history.

In start-up lore, Mark Zuckerberg was the pioneer of the modern “boy boss.”  Carrying business cards that read: “I’m CEO, bitch,” and ruffling Wall Street feathers with his “disrespectful” hoodie, he demanded that investers let him keep a controlling interest in Facebook as it grew.

Meta.  Mark’s Facebook company was rebranded as Meta in 2021 because of Mark’s interest in the metaverse.  This company owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, as well as other tech products and services.

In time Mark Zuckerberg – like other autocratic tech barons such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos – came to support the autocratic US President Donald Trump.

Jewish Roots

Zuckerberg is a German or Yiddish surname meaning “sugar mountain.”  For Jewish bearers of the name, it most likely started out as an ornamental name.  Most Zuckerbergs in America are Jewish.  The numbers there are not large (around 340), with almost half found in New York.

Ike and Rose Zuckerberg.  Mark Zuckerberg’s line in America began when Isaac (Ike) Zuckerberg arrived in Ellis Island from Galicia (in present-day Ukraine) in 1893.  Four years later he married Rose Teich, also from Galicia, in New York City.  Their second son Max was born on Christmas Day 1899.

They raised in total four children – two boys, Sam and Max, and two girls, Esther and Jannette.  Both of their sons died relatively young.  Max – who was recorded as a fruit peddler in 1930 and as a self-employed tailor in 1940 – died in 1948 at the age of forty-nine; while Sam died in 1955 at fifty-seven after falling off a roof top in Queens.

After World War Two

Jack.  Max’s son Jack, born in 1920, grew up on the Lower East Side.  His wife Miriam, whom he had married in 1943, came from a Hungarian Jewish family.  Jack was in the US Army during World War Two.  After the war he was a mail carrier in Brooklyn and moved to a tree-lined street in Flatbush.

Ed, Mark’s Father.  If you are growing up Jewish in New York City, your parents usually want you to be a doctor or a dentist.  And Jack’s son Ed did become a dentist.  He did well, married and moved out of the city to White Plains and Dobbs Ferry, New York.  Ed and his wife Karen still live in Dobbs Ferry.  But all of their four children have decamped to the West Coast.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Family Tree

• Isaac (Ike) Zuckerberg from Galicia (1866-1929) came to New York in 1893 and m. Rose Teich (1876-1943) in New York in 1897
• – Samuel Zuckerberg (1898-1955) m. Pauline Fortgang
• – Max Zuckerberg (1899-1948), born on Christmas Day 1899
• – Esther Zuckerberg (1905-1988) m. Abraham Eisenkraft
• – Jannette Zuckerberg (1908-1996) m. Isadore Garsko

• Max Zuckerberg from New York m. Minnie Wiesenthal from Galicia (1898-1986) in 1918
• – Harold Zuckerberg (1918-1996) m. Mildred Schwartz
• – Jacob (Jack) Zuckerberg (1920-2004), mail carrier
• – Ellen Zuckerberg (1921-1999) m. William Gentile

• Jack Zuckerberg m. Miriam Hollander (1920-1994) in 1943 and moved to Brooklyn
• – Edward (Ed) Zuckerberg (b. 1954), dental practice

• Edward (Ed) Zuckerberg m. Karen Kempner from Brooklyn (b. 1958) in 1979 and moved to Dobbs Ferry, New York
• – Randi Zuckerberg (b. 1982) m. Brent Tworetzky, digital businesswoman
• – Mark Zuckerberg (b. 1984)
• – Donna Zuckerberg (b. 1987) m. Harry Schmidt, classics writer
• – Arielle Zuckerberg (b. 1987) m. Andrew Jordan,  investment advisor

• Mark Zuckerberg m. Priscilla Chan (b. 1985) in California in 2012
• – Maxima Chan Zuckerberg (b. 2015)
• – August Zuckerberg (b.2017)