Papa Ben was born in Krakow, Poland in 1928. His father, Lazar owned a chocolate company famous for their chocolate covered wafer cookies. Lazar shared his love of baking with his son, and during family holidays they made Mandelbroyt, which delighted the entire family and soon became the family tradition for special occasions.
His father's passion for baking, which was instilled in the family, allowed the family to survive outside the ghettos for a portion of the war. Using the stone oven in their cottage, Ben and his father worked together to prepare the finest baked goods for family, friends and their surrounding village.
In September of 1947, after the war tore apart his family, Papa Ben arrived in Brooklyn, New York to reunite with his only surviving family member, his sister, Lola. Ready to embrace a new country and the opportunities that lay before him, Ben moved to Los Angeles with little money in his pocket, but with the determination and the excitement to succeed.