Jordan Holtzman was born in Brooklyn in 1946 to Jewish parents. His family moved to the Linden Houses in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn in the 1950s, where they remained until the 1970s. He attended PS 190, George Gershwin Junior High School, Thomas Jefferson High School, New York City Community College, and Baruch College. He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He worked as a stock trader on Wall Street for 25 years, and now works as a Parent Coordinator at PS 99 in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York. He lives in Forest Hills, Queens, New York.