Rabbi Aryeh Leib Baron was born on March 2, 1912, in the town of Horodok in the
Minsk Region of
Belarus, then part of the
Russian Empire, to Reuven Baranovich (his last name, Baron, is a shortened version of "Baranovich"). His
Hebrew birthday was on the
Fast of Esther. In his youth, he studied under Rabbi
Avraham Kalmanowitz in
Rakov and later at a
yeshiva in
Stowbtsy, Belarus. As a younger man, he studied in the
Baranovich Yeshiva under Rabbi
Elchonon Wasserman and Rabbi
David Rappoport. Wasserman used the notes that he took in
shiur (class) to publish his
sefer, Kovetz He'aros. In the early 1930s, Baron went to study in the
Mir Yeshiva, where he stayed until the outbreak of
World War II, when the yeshiva escaped to
Vilnius. In 1940, with the aid of
Chiune Sugihara, then-Japanese consul to
Kaunas, the yeshiva fled from
Nazi-occupied Europe to
Kobe, in
Japan, from where they were transferred to
Shanghai, in
China. After several years, much of the yeshiva immigrated to the United States, including Baron. He then married the daughter of Rabbi Chaim Eliezer Samson,
rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim in
Baltimore. == Rabbinic career ==