Judah Leib Ben-Ze'ev was born in the Galician town of Lelov and received a traditional religious education.[6] He was married off at the age of 13 and settled in the home of his wife's parents in Krakow,[7] where he spent his days studying Talmud and his nights in clandestinely acquiring the knowledge of Hebrew philology and of secular subjects.[8] In 1787 he moved to Berlin, then the centre of the Haskalah movement.[9] There, he supported himself by teaching Hebrew and began publishing poems and parables in the Hebrew press.[10] Ben-Ze'ev became friends with the Me'assefim and contributed to their journal poems and fables signed "Y. L. K." (Yehuda Leib Krakow).[2]