 On his mother's side he was a grandson of Rabbi Yehoshua Heschel b. Yosef of Cracow, the author of Maginne Shelomoh.While a youth he became examiner of the Hebrew teachers of Lemberg.In 1702 his first wife, Leah Landau, his child, Guitel, and his mother were killed through an explosion of gunpowder that wrecked the house in which they lived.