Yosef Haim Brenner was born to a poor Jewish family in Novi Mlyny [uk], Russian Empire (today part of Ukraine).

Unlike A. D. Gordon, however, he could not take the strain of manual labor, and soon left to devote himself to literature and teaching at the Gymnasia Herzliya in Tel Aviv.

Robert Alter, in the collection Modern Hebrew Literature, writes that Brenner "had little patience for the aesthetic dimension of imaginative fictions: 'A single particle of truth,' he once said, 'is more valuable to me than all possible poetry.'"

"[3] This was Alter's preface to Brenner's story, "The Way Out", published in 1919, and set during Turkish and British struggles over Palestine in World War I.

The site of his murder on Kibbutz Galuyot street is now marked by Brenner House, a center for Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, the youth organization of the Histadrut.