[Jacob Turkel] was born in Tel Aviv in 1935, two years after his parents emigrated from Austria. He moved to Jerusalem at the age of five and studied at the religious-Zionist Ma'aleh school. Turkel graduated from Hebrew University Law School in 1960.

Between 1980 and 1995, Turkel served as president of the Beersheba District Court and took two years off to serve separate stints as an acting Supreme Court justice. In 1995, after Justice Aharon Barak became president of the Supreme Court, he saw to it that Turkel received a permanent appointment.