Theodore Bikel was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, the son of Miriam (née Riegler) and Josef Bikel, from Bukovina. As an active Zionist, his father named him after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Following the German annexation of Austria in 1938, Bikel's family fled to Mandatory Palestine, where his father's contacts helped the family obtain British passports. Bikel studied at the Mikve Yisrael agricultural school and joined Kibbutz Kfar HaMaccabi.