Sherman was born in Anaheim, California, and was raised in Riverside, California. At the age of 10 he spoke at a public hearing regarding noise pollution at Riverside Municipal Airport. Sherman wrote and delivered his own speech to city council members explaining that it was hard to do homework with airplanes constantly flying overhead, and that more airplanes would make studying more difficult. At the age of 11. he was team captain of his elementary school's KidQuiz team, a Saturday morning children's game show on CBS2 in Los Angeles. At the age of 16 he was recruited by the University of California to participate in a young scientists research program. At this program Sherman worked in a National Institutes of Health-sponsored laboratory developing neurotransmittersensors for brain research.[1][2] He was a leader in his high school's Key Club.[3]
Sherman completed his MBA at Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Marseille-Provence (KEDGE Business School) in Marseille, France.[11][12] He wrote a book on Euro-Mediterranean Corporate Financial Structures based on his research at Kedge.[13] He was an eMBA exchange student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.[14]
Personal life
Sherman is a convert to Judaism.[15][16][17] He lectures about his conversion and about Torah.[18]
He has been featured in Israeli media about his conversion experience, and about his artwork. Mishpacha magazine describes how people could not believe that the man in a beard, peyot, and traditional long black coat was once the gentile buying the chametz from Jerusalem's Beth Din before Passover.[19] The Orthodox Union described Sherman as "originally an Evangelical Christian youth minister who began to question religion as a teenager. Follow his journey around the world where he studied neuroscience and business until today settled in Israel as a Jew heavily involved in Israel advocacy".[20][21][22]
Jerusalem Online News, a subsidiary of Channel 2, describes how Sherman's art is inspired by Judaism. "As part of the Kotel (Western Wall) series, Sherman is painting doves of peace and other beautiful birds flying over the skyline of the Kotel... Sherman artistically portrays the vibrant celebrations that occur at Jewish weddings that take place beside the remnants of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem."[24]
Via the Holocaust Art Institute, Sherman has donated paintings in memory of The Righteous Among the Nations to The Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the State of Israel, The Serbian Embassy in Israel, The Slovak Embassy in Israel, The Embassy of Belgium in Israel, The Embassy of Hungary in Tel-Aviv, and The Austrian Cultural Forum Tel Aviv.[25][26][27][28][29][30]
Greek Diplomat Alexandros Yennimatas has noted that "“Through his work, Mr. Sherman reminds us all that both creation and destruction are inherently human notions that transcend all forms of social divisions... Mr. Sherman’s resolve to promote the cause of peace and fraternity among peoples stands as a beacon of hope in these difficult times.”[23]
^Bandoim, Lana (January 28, 2015). "Using art to understand cancer". Hickory, NC: Hareyan Publishing. EMax Health. Archived from the original on February 2, 2015. Retrieved February 1, 2015. Joseph J. Sherman, who is an abstract expressionist painter, is influenced by Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall, Joan Mitchell and Jackson Pollock. His artwork reveals the conscious and subconscious levels of the human mind. His experience at the age of 16 at the University of California Riverside also influences his art. Sherman had the opportunity to work with the National Institutes of Health on a neurotransmitter sensor project.
^Issamar, Ginzberg (April 9, 2012). "Tips for Entrepreneurs: The emperor's new clothes". The Jerusalem Post. During this time, I met an expert in Azerbaijani oil fields named Joseph Sherman, who has an MBA from Ecole de Management de Marseille.
^Sherman, Joseph (September 2015). Euro-Mediterranean Corporate Financial Structures: Can the corporate financial structure create value to the corporation?. Marseille, France: Kedge Business School Research. p. 174. ISBN978-1517161866.
^Aryeh Ehrlich; Rachel Ginsberg (May 19, 2015). "All Roads Lead to Home". Mishpacha Magazine. Archived from the original on July 4, 2015. Retrieved July 3, 2015.
^Gray, Julie (February 15, 2015). "A Country Full of Characters". Jerusalem. The Times of Israel. The moment I met Joseph Sherman, I knew I had met yet another Israeli with a story. A real character. Joseph, who lives in Jerusalem, is a management consultant. He is also a Hasidic Jew from Southern California. His parents are fundamental Christians. Joseph, you see, is an Orthodox convert. He also has a Masters Degree in Corporate Finance that he earned at the Kedge Business School, in Marseille, France. Joseph is also an artist. He's been painting, he explained, since he was in college. While he was in business school, he traveled all over the world and drank in the art he saw in museums and in public spaces.
^The Jewish Pope: Myth, Diaspora and Yiddish Literature. United Kingdom: European Humanities Research Centre. 2003. ISBN9781900755771.
^Ariey Ariley (May 29, 2014). "Yosef the Holy Avreich" (in Hebrew). Jerusalem, Israel: Mishpacha Magazine. Retrieved September 30, 2014.