Stephen Shaiken was born in New York City and graduated Queens College and Brooklyn Law School. He and his wife Josie moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1981, where they lived for over thirty years and raised two daughters and where Stephen practiced criminal defense and deportation defense law. Stephen is a member of the bars of New York, California and Florida.
He has served as a member and as Chair of the Marin County Jewish Community Relations Council. He has been a board member of two congregations, including the Thailand Progressive Jewish Congregation during the three years he and Josie lived in Bangkok. He's been a member of HCDEC since 2018. He served on the county executive committee and local Democratic Club when he lived in California.
He and Josie purchased their Seminole Heights home in 2017 and love living there. Since retiring from the law, Steve, who earned an MA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, has been a fiction writer, publishing several novels and short stories. Stephen is conversant in Spanish, Thai and German, with lingering bits of Yiddish and Hebrew. When not politicking or writing, he enjoys yoga, gardening, biking and struggling with guitar.