Eli Freud was born in Triest (now in Italy). He moved to Vienna where he continued his musical studies, studying the oboe with Alexander Wunderer, and conducting with Felix Weingartner and Joseph Krips at the Wiener Musikakademie. After the Anschluss Eli Freud went to Prague in 1938 and a year later he immigrated to Palestine. He played the oboe in the Palestine Broadcasting Orchestra (before the independence of the state of Israel), after the establishment of the State of Israel he founded and conducted the Jerusalem Chamber Orchestra and, in 1955, the Israel Bach Society. Freud played the accordion, piano, saxophone and oboe.