Jack Wassermann was born in 1929 in Dusseldorf, Germany but moved to Palestine in 1935 and the United States in 1941 before finally settling in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1966. He holds a master's degree in musicology. Married for 61 years, Wassermann and his wife have one daughter, two grandsons and a great-granddaughter, all of whom they love unreservedly.