Born in Radom, Poland, in 1939, Adam Gabriel Fuerstenberg feld Poland with his mother to Galicia, then to Soviet Asia. He lived in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany, after the war. He emigrated to Montreal with his parents in 1951, he attended Baron Byng High School and attended Sir George Williams University (Concordia), and then studied English literature as a graduate student at the State University of New York in Buffalo. He married his wife Gloria in 1964 and the couple moved to Toronto. They would go on to have 3 children.

He was hired by Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in the Department of English, remaining there for 41 years, and became a long serving member of Ryerson's Board of Governors.

Fuerstenberg founded the Canadian Jewish Book Awards and was a long serving editor or Parchment, the journal of Canadian Jewish Literature. He headed the Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto for a time and helped to bring important exhibits to Toronto, including one on Anne Frank. Several years ago, he escorted a group of teachers on an educational Holocaust trip to Europe. He was an enthusiastic champion of numerous projects, including a Toronto Jewish museum project about a decade ago.