Eshel Ben-Jacob was born on April 13, 1952, in Haifa Israel into a family of pioneers that immigrated to Israel in the 1930s. After graduating from high school, he matriculated to study physics and mathematics at Tel Aviv University and was drafted to the Israeli Navy two years later. He completed his B.Sc., M.Sc. and most of his PhD studies during the service (1972–1980) first in the Navy Weather Forecast unit and later in the Navy Intelligence.