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Rabbi Aryeh Leib Baron (nee Baranovich) was born in Horodok, Belarus (Lithuania) in 1912 and passed away in Telz-Stone, Israel in October 2011. He studied in the yeshiva of Rakov (today Rakaw, Belarus) under Rav Avraham Kalmanowitz, spent six months in a yeshiva in Stoiptz (Stoibtz, today Stowbtsy, Belarus) and later attended Yeshivat Ohel Torah in Baranovich for five years, where he met Rabbi ElchononWasserman, Rabbi David Rappaport, as well as Rabbi Yisrael Yakov Lubchanzky, the mashgiah of Baranovich, at whose home he was hosted for Shabbat meals.1 He was one of two students in Baranovich who were responsible for tutoring the weaker students to prepare them for R. Wasserman's classes. He summarized each class and R. Wasserman used his notes to publish his novellae on Yevamot, Kovets He'arot.2 At the age of 20, Rav Baron moved to the yeshiva in Mir (Belarus).3 In 1939, the students of the Mir yeshiva moved to Vilnius with the outbreak of the war and, in 1941, after receiving entry visas from the Japanese government, they fled Lithuania to avoid the Nazi occupation, on a journey which took place, in part, on Shabbat. They resided in Japanese-occupied Shanghai for five years. In the summer of 1946, R. Baron came to the US and married the daughter of Rabbi Chaim Eliezer Samson of Baltimore. He used to joke that he was invited to the US by a congregation who heard he had a good sense of humor. In 1948, he was appointed the Headmaster and Rosh Yeshiva of Mercaz Hatorah in Montreal, where he worked for twenty-four years. The principal of the school was Rabbi Mordecai Rabinowitz, his brother-in-law, who had studied with him in Baranovich and at the Mir yeshiva. After the closure of the yeshiva, he established Merkaz Hatalmud, in 1973, which he led until close to his death. He wrote nine books of novellae as well as many articles, some of which were published in the Pardes journal and the Yated Neeman newspaper. His son Elchonon heads the Baranovich Yeshiva in Jerusalem.4
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What is a mitnagged? All mitnaggedim see their luminary and prototype as the Vilna Gaon (Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, GRA, 1720-1797). The world of the mitnaggedim under went many...