Rodale was born in Manhattan on August 16, 1898, the son of an Orthodox Jewish grocer, and raised on the Lower East Side. His birth name was Cohen, the name his father was given upon arriving in the United States, and a common surname given to Jews arriving at Ellis Island (original last name Lachofsky). Due to a poor relationship with his father, he changed it to Rodale, an ode to his mother's Jewish maiden name, Rouda.