Menuhin was born Moshe Mnuchin in Gomel to a distinguished, religious Lithuanian Jewish family.

[3] When the family moved to the Yishuv, Moshe was sent to Orthodox Jewish schools, first to Yeshivas in Jerusalem, then to the Hebrew Gymnasia Herzlia in Jaffa - Tel Aviv.

In late 1919 he and his wife Marutha (née Sher) became American citizens, and changed their surname to "Menuhin".

[4] He later moved to Los Gatos, California, along with his family,[1] where he worked as a Hebrew teacher.

He was the author of The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time and Jewish Critics of Zionism, and of the family history The Menuhin Saga.