Daniel Neufeld was born to a Jewish family in Praszka, where he received a traditional cheder education.

At the age of 13 he enrolled in a provincial grammar school run by the Piarist Fathers in Wieluń, but did not graduate, possibly because of his involvement in the November Uprising.

[2] Neufeld opened a Jewish boys' school in 1838, with a curriculum that included the exact sciences, foreign language, and principles of progressive Judaism.

[4] Neufeld settled in Warsaw in 1861, where worked as an editor of Samuel Orgelbrand's Encyklopedia powszechna (until 1868) and as a teacher in Jewish government schools.

[8] Towards the end of his life Neufeld settled in Piotrków, where he served as the honorary director of a Jewish hospital.