Tempel was born in Bayreuth, a town in the Free State of Bavaria. She studied history, political science and Jewish studies at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, prior to receiving a scholarship in New York between 1989 and 1991. She gained a PhD from Bundeswehr University Munich where she served as an assistant to Michael Wolffsohn. Beginning her journalistic career in 1993, she worked in Israel as a Middle East correspondent. While there, she covered a range of events such as the Oslo I Accord, the Intifada and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. In 2003, she was a recipient of the Quadriga award.