Asher, the youngest of four siblings, was born in Virginia to Josephine, a theology of art professor, and Jacob, a rabbi and world-renowned Bible scholar. His childhood was steeped in Jewish life, traditions and teachings, and his home was a veritable crossroads for some of the greatest scholars and thinkers of the 20th century, from clergy of all cloths to existential philosophers and particle physicists. They came to counsel, query, debate and study, and thus Asher, basking in the glow of this intense celebration and exploration of the mind, began to understand that thought was the antidote to boredom, and curiosity was the seed of knowledge.
Half of his childhood was spent in Berkeley California in the 1960s, where he navigated the turbulent social currents of the free speech and anti-war movements. As luck would have it, he managed to experience some extraordinary free concerts at “Peoples Park” in the early days of the Grateful Dead, Deep Purple and Peter, Paul and Mary. Sporting paisley bell-bottoms, a beaded peace medallion and tearing about on his ten-speed, Asher was a budding “flower-child.”
