David Rabinowitz was born in Brownsville, section of Brooklyn, New York in 1917 to Rudel and Rabbi Shmuel Avrohom. David was a seventh-generation descendent of Chassidic Judaism’s founder, the Baal Shem Tov.

He lost his hearing suddenly at the age of three. His granddaughter Rochel Lea (Kakon) Groundland explained in her eulogy that