Anti-Socialist Laws
Friedeberg was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, today Sovetsk, Russia, to Salomon (a rabbi) and Rebekka Friedeberg (née Levy). He studied medicine and political economy at the University of Königsberg, but was expelled in 1887 for "abetting social democratic endeavors". Friedeberg moved to Berlin, where he worked as a private teacher and continued his studies at the University of Berlin after the sunset of the Anti-Socialist Laws in 1890, graduating in 1895.