David Herzog was born in Trnava (Tyrnau) (now in Slovakia). He studied in Vienna and in 1900 became rabbi of Smichov (a suburb of Prague). Subsequently he was rabbi in Graz and chief rabbi of Styria, also teaching Semitic languages at the university of Graz. When the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, they took him from his home and threw him in the river. He was rescued and escaped to England where he lived in Oxford. A scholar, he wrote primarily on medieval Jewish, especially Judeo-Arabic literature and on the history of the Jews of Austria.