Israel Scheib (later Eldad) was born in 1910 in Pidvolochysk, Galicia in a traditional Jewish home. The Scheibs wandered as refugees during the First World War. In 1918, in Lvov, young Scheib witnessed a funeral procession for Jews murdered in a pogrom. After high school, Scheib enrolled at the Rabbinical Seminary of Vienna for religious studies and the University of Vienna for secular studies. He completed his doctorate on "The Voluntarism of Eduard von Hartmann, Based on Schopenhauer," but never took his rabbinical exams at the seminary.