Abraham Joshua Heschel was born in 1907 as the youngest of six children of Moshe Mordechai and Reizel Perlow. He was descended from preeminent European rabbis on both sides of his family.[3] His paternal great-great-grandfather and namesake was Rebbe Avraham Yehoshua Heshel of Apt in present-day Poland. His mother was also a descendant of Avraham Yehoshua Heshel and other Hasidic dynasties.