Born Moshe-Zvi Menkin in Łódź in the Russian Empire (today in Poland), Neria was educated at yeshivas in Minsk and Shkloŭ. He made aliyah to Mandatory Palestine in 1930, and studied at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva with Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, receiving certification as a rabbi. He also studied in the Mizrachi teachers seminary in Jerusalem.