Pinchas Zukerman was born in Tel Aviv. His parents were Jews who had survived the Nazi concentration camps and had moved from Poland to Israel in 1947. By the time he was eight he showed great musical promise and started to learn music at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. When the violinist Isaac Stern heard him play he was so impressed that he helped him to go to the Julliard School of Music in New York. There he studied with Ivan Galanian.