Background
Born in Frankfurt, Germany into a distinguished rabbinical family, Bezalel Rakow was a direct descendant of Rabbi Yomtov Lipman Heller, (author of the Tosafos Yomtov commentary on the Mishnah). His father, Rabbi Yomtov Lipman Rakow, a pupil of the great Volozhin yeshiva, had been a rosh yeshiva in Frankfurt-on-Main.
