Shaul Yisraeli was born in the city of Slutsk, in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus) to Rabbi Binyamin and Chava Izraelit.

Rabbi Binyamin was arrested by the Soviets for teaching Torah to community members and was sent to Siberia; subsequently, all contact with him was lost.

In 1933, after his requests for an exit visa from Russia were repeatedly denied, he illegally crossed the frozen Prut river into Poland.

[4] Like Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, Yisraeli ruled that it is permitted to abort a fetus diagnosed as a Tay–Sachs disease carrier to prevent future suffering of the child and mental anguish of the family.

Yisraeli, reads Maimonides' analysis of Jewish religious warfare, and argues that it does not fall into the traditionally understood category of "defensive war."