Jacob Pinkerfeld was born in the city of Przemysl, Galicia, Poland in 1897, the son of an architect. He joined the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and later studied architecture at the College of Technology in Vienna, Austria. Pinkerfeld moved to the Land of Israel with Hashomer Hatzair in 1920 and lived in Zichron Ya'acov. He returned to Europe to recover from malaria and pneumonia, after which he graduated university as an engineer-architect in 1925. That year, Pinkerfeld moved back to the Land of Israel.
