A native of Lvov, Galicia, Benjamin Israel Murmelstein was raised Orthodox Jewish, like his family. After completing his education in Vienna, Murmelstein established himself there, becoming rabbi of a small synagogue, an occasional lecturer at the Vienna University on ancient Jewish history, and—following a speech on the Jewish soldiers whose names were effaced from German war memorials of World War I—a person of interest to the Viennese Jewish community organization, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG). As a Board member of the IKG, he began after the annexing of Austria into Nazi Germany producing reports which were presented to Adolf Eichmann as part of that man's work emigrating and seizing the property of the Jews.