Boruch Ber Leibowitz

Boruch Dov Leibowitz was born in Slutsk and was known as a prodigy at a very young age. He was sent to learn in Volozhin yeshiva, where he quickly attached himself to his main teacher, Chaim Soloveitchik,[3] striving to completely adopt his unique Talmudic approach, which was the foundation of the popular Brisker method.

He then married the daughter of Abraham Isaac Zimmerman, whom he succeeded as rabbi of Halusk. He also served as a pulpit rabbi for other communities. In 1904 he was appointed head of the Kneseth Beis Yitzchak Yeshiva in Slobodka.[4] During World War I Leibowitz had to leave Slabodka and relocated the yeshiva to Minsk and then to Kremenchug[5] and Vilna. In 1926 he re-established the yeshiva in Kaminetz,[6] where it continued to attract hundreds of students for the next 13 years.

In May of 1928, Rav Boruch Ber traveled to America together with his son in law Reb Reuven Grozovsky to raise funds for his Yeshiva. New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker presented Rav Boruch Ber with a symbolic key to the city he exclaimed, “Rabbi Leibowitz disproves Darwin’s Theory of Evolution,” said the Mayor.[7] “Only a God could have created such a person!” While in the US, he visited cities from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to Detroit and Boston as well as smaller Jewish enclaves such as Albany, NY and Harrisburg, PA. He also delivered a Shiur at the national convention of the Agudath Harabanim in Belmar, NJ.[8]

In 1939, shortly before his death, he fled with the yeshiva to a suburb of Vilna,[9][10] hoping to escape from the Nazis and the communists. He is buried at the Zaretcha cemetery, Vilna. His grave was identified in 2012.[11]

His daughter married Reb Reuven Grozovsky,[12] who was rosh hayeshiva of Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn and Bais Medrash Elyon in Monsey

Leibowitzs' grandson, Chaim Shlomo Leibowitz, was one of the most prominent talmudic authorities in Jerusalem, as well as one of the leading rabbis of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak.[13]

His nephew was famed Talmudical genius Rabbi Chaim Zimmerman of the Hebrew Theological College.

Leibowitzs' granddaughter married Rabbi Yitzchok Scheiner.

• Birkas Shmuel (The Blessing of Shmuel), his magnum opus, named in memory of his father, Shmuel David Leibowitz. This work includes many otherwise unrecorded teachings of Chaim Soloveitchik, as well as Leibowitz's novel understandings of Torah topics on the Talmud published from his manuscripts by his nephew and longtime student, Chaim Shalom Leibowitz.[14]

• Shiurei Reb Baruch Ber (Lectures of Reb Boruch Ber) - recorded and published by his students.

• Boruch Ber Leibowitz