Asher, born in New York, was the third child and eldest son of Israel Baer Kursheedt and Sarah Abigail Seixas. The family moved to Richmond when Asher was four, and he spent much of his youth there. The Kursheedts returned to New York for good in 1824, when Asher was 16. At age 31, he married his maternal second cousin, 23 year old Abigail Judah, daughter of Manuel Judah and Grace Seixas, in 1839. They would have twelve children, whom they raised in New York, over the course of the next two decades.
Asher followed the example set by his father and youngest brother, Gershom, and played a prominent role in the Jewish community of New York. He was a founder of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, an organization dedicated to advocacy for Jews in the United States and abroad. In 1859, he chaired the building committee for Congregation Shearith Israel, overseeing the construction of the congregation’s new synagogue building on 19th Street, for which he laid the first cornerstone. He also served as an officer of the Hebrew Relief Society, a Jewish charitable organization founded in 1828 to support the education of Jewish children and the relief of indigent Jews. Asher died in New York at age 85, after a long and productive life, and was survived by his wife and eleven of his children.
