Ben Shalom Bernanke (pronounced /bərˈnæŋki/ bər-NANG-kee; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist, the former chair of the department of Economics at Princeton University and the current Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. Bernanke succeeded Alan Greenspan on February 1, 2006. He was nominated for a second term by President Barack Obama in 2009 as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Born in Augusta, Georgia, Bernanke was raised in a ranch house on East Jefferson Street in Dillon, South Carolina‹See Tfd›. His father Philip was a pharmacist and part-time theater manager, and his mother Edna was originally a schoolteacher. He is the eldest of three children, having a brother and sister. His younger brother, Seth, is a lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, and his younger sister, Sharon, is a longtime administrator at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

The Bernankes were one of the few Jewish families in the area, attending a local synagogue called Ohav Shalom; as a child, Bernanke learned Hebrew from his maternal grandfather Harold Friedman, who was a professional hazzan and Hebrew teacher. His father and uncle co-owned and managed a drugstore that they bought from his paternal grandfather, Jonas Bernanke. Jonas was born in Boryslav, Austria-Hungary (today part of Ukraine), on January 23, 1891, and immigrated to the United States from Przemyśl, Poland (part of Austria-Hungary until 1919). He arrived at Ellis Island, age 30, Thursday, June 30, 1921, with his wife Pauline, age 25. On the ship’s manifest, Jonas’ occupation is listed as “clerk” and Pauline’s as “doctor med.” They moved to Dillon, South Carolina, from New York in the 1940s. Bernanke’s mother often worked there as well, having given up her job as a school teacher when he was born, and Bernanke also assisted from time to time.