Yehuda Liebes was born in Jerusalem in 1947.
His father, Joseph Gerhard Liebes (1910–1988), a noted Hebrew translator of classic literature, left his native Germany at the age of 18 to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He returned to his homeland to continue his education, but was expelled from his university due to the Nuremberg Laws.
He then undertook agricultural training in Latvia with a Zionist movement.
There he married his first wife, with whom he settled in Pardes Hanna in Mandatory Palestine and had two daughters before they divorced.
In 1941 Liebes married his second wife, Mira, a native of Riga who had grown up in Berlin.
They had two children, a daughter (Tamar, today head of the Department of Communications at Hebrew University) and a son (Yehuda).
On his mother's side, Yehuda was a cousin of Israeli intellectual Yeshayahu Leibowitz.

Liebes was acquainted with Gershom Scholem, the father of modern Kabbalah scholarship, from an early age, as his parents were friends of Scholem.
Scholem attended Yehuda's Bar Mitzvah and gave him as a gift Yeshayahu Tishby's book Mishnat HaZohar ("The Wisdom of the Zohar").

Liebes graduated from the Hebrew University Secondary School.
In 1965, he enlisted in the Paratroopers Brigade for his compulsory army service, and in 1967, served in the Six-Day War as a non-commissioned officer.
During reserve duty in 1969, he was injured during a Palestinian attack on his post in the Jordan Valley, lost several teeth, and was hospitalized for several months.

In 1967, Liebes began his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees, he pursued his doctoral research under Scholem.
Scholem gave Liebes access to handwritten note cards he had prepared for a lexicon of Zohar terminology that he never wrote, and Liebes submitted his dissertation on Peraḳim be-milon sefer ha-Zohar (Chapters in the Dictionary of the Book of the Zohar) (1976).
Yehuda Liebes was born in Jerusalem in 1947. His father, Joseph Gerhard Liebes (1910–1988), a noted Hebrew translator of classic literature, left his native Germany at the age of 18 to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He returned to his homeland to continue his education, but was expelled from his university due to the Nuremberg Laws. He then undertook agricultural training in Latvia with a Zionist movement. There he married his first wife, with whom he settled in Pardes Hanna in Mandatory Palestine and had two daughters before they divorced. In 1941 Liebes married his second wife, Mira, a native of Riga who had grown up in Berlin. They had two children, a daughter (Tamar, today head of the Department of Communications at Hebrew University) and a son (Yehuda). On his mother's side, Yehuda was a cousin of Israeli intellectual Yeshayahu Leibowitz. 
Liebes was acquainted with Gershom Scholem, the father of modern Kabbalah scholarship, from an early age, as his parents were friends of Scholem. Scholem attended Yehuda's Bar Mitzvah and gave him as a gift Yeshayahu Tishby's book Mishnat HaZohar ("The Wisdom of the Zohar").
Liebes graduated from the Hebrew University Secondary School. In 1965, he enlisted in the Paratroopers Brigade for his compulsory army service, and in 1967, served in the Six-Day War as a non-commissioned officer. During reserve duty in 1969, he was injured during a Palestinian attack on his post in the Jordan Valley, lost several teeth, and was hospitalized for several months.
In 1967, Liebes began his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees, he pursued his doctoral research under Scholem. Scholem gave Liebes access to handwritten note cards he had prepared for a lexicon of Zohar terminology that he never wrote, and Liebes submitted his dissertation on Peraḳim be-milon sefer ha-Zohar (Chapters in the Dictionary of the Book of the Zohar) (1976).
Yehuda Liebes