Mordecai Rabinovitz was born in Tel-Aviv, Palestine (Eretz Israel) in 1933. He is married to Zohar (née Brick), father to Samuel and Tamar, and grandfather to Daphna, Naama and Yuval.
He began his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1953, and received the M.Sc. degree in Chemistry and Physics in 1958. His Ph.D. thesis was titled "Ring Enlargement in the Wagner Meerwein Rearranement", with Professor Ernest David Bergmann (1961).
After three years of postdoctoral research at Princeton University (USA) with Professor Richard K. Hill, Mordecai Rabinovitz joined the faculty of the Hebrew University in 1964. A professor since 1973, he served on various academic duties, including Head of the Institute of Chemistry (1986-1990) and Head of the Organic Chemistry Department (1998-2000).
Prof. Rabinovitz has been a visiting professor at numerous universities in Germany, USA and Switzerland. He taught courses on Organic Chemistry and various NMR topics.