Andstadt was born and lived in Lwów (Poland, nowadays Lviv in Ukraine) until 1930.

[2] When Anstadt was fourteen years old, he worked for the Transformatorenfabriek Besra in Amsterdam, he often went to ANSKI a cultural club for mostly Jewish eastern European immigrants where you could assist at political and other lectures and all kind of performances, where he also received mentoring and was helped to become more spiritually developed.

Later, he received a master's degree in law from the University of Amsterdam, specializing in criminology.

Next, he worked as a journalist with the Dutch Radio Union, and wrote the spoken parts of 1955 documentary programs for television such as In, Televisierechtbank, Spiegel der Kunsten (Mirror of Arts) and De bezetting [nl] (Occupation).

As an employee of NRC Handelsblad, Anstadt wrote a large number of opinion articles.