Israel was born to the family of a Jewish cantor that immigrated to New York City in 1893. His father died when the boy was eight years old. Having obtained only two years of formal education, he worked as a street singer and a singing waiter in New York’s Lower East Side. He began writing song lyrics, and his first published song, "Marie from Sunny Italy," appeared in 1907; a printer’s error on this song named him Irving Berlin, a surname that he subsequently kept.
Berlin continued his writing and within a few years was a successful “song plugger,” demonstrating new tunes. He was unable to read or write musical notation and learned music by ear instead. He began writing his own music as well as lyrics, and in 1911 he wrote what quickly became the preeminent hit of Tin Pan Alley’s ragtime vogue, "Alexander’s Ragtime Band." His first ballad, "When I Lost You," was written in 1912. Then he began contributing to numerous Broadway revues and musical entertainments, including Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies. In 1919 he founded the Irving Berlin Music Corporation to publish his own music.