Having received his early instruction in the Talmud from his father, Baruch Asher Perles, he was educated successively at the gymnasium of his native city, was one of the first rabbis trained at the new type of rabbinical seminary at Breslau, and the university of that city (Oriental philology and philosophy; Ph.D. 1859, presenting as his dissertation Meletemata Peschitthoniana).
In 1863 he married Rosalie, the eldest daughter of Simon Baruch Schefftel.
Eine archäologische Studie, 1860), and of mourning customs (Die Leichenfeierlichkeitcn ins nachbiblischen Judenthum, 1861)[citation needed], his contributions to the sources of the Arabian Nights (Zur rabbinischen Sprach- und Sagenkunde, 1873), and his notes on rabbinic antiquities (Beitrage zur rabbiniscizen Sprachund Altertumskunde, 1893)[citation needed].
Perles' essays are rich in suggestiveness, and have been the starting-point of much fruitful research.
He also wrote an essay on Nachmanides, and a biography and critical appreciation of Rashba (1863).