Rabbi Yaakov ben Zev Wolf Kranz, the Dubno Maggid, was born in 1741 in Zhetel, near Vilna. He is regarded as the greatest preacher in Jewish history, and his name is known in every community.

At eighteen he married a young woman from Mezritch and settled with his father-in-law; he taught halacha to young men in the beit midrash and preached on the weekly portion without pay. When his father-in-law lost his fortune, he had to live on the modest wage the Mezritch community paid him for his sermons. He then moved to Zhovkva in Galicia, then to Dubno in Volhynia, where he stayed eighteen years, and ended his life in Zamość, Poland.

He preached in Yiddish and was famous for his parables (meshalim), which made the deepest ideas of the Torah accessible. The Vilna Gaon himself loved to hear him and asked him to preach before him. The Maggid at first declined, then, at his insistence, dared to tell him that his saintliness had one lack: it kept apart, within its own four cubits, rather than amid everyday life.

His students collected his teachings in Ohel Yaakov on the Torah, Sefer HaMiddot and Kol Yaakov. He passed away in Zamość on 17 Tevet 5565 (1804).