Scienceישעיהו ליבוביץ

Yeshayahu Leibowitz

Yeshayahu Leibowitz was an Israeli Orthodox Jewish scientist and thinker, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica.

1903 to 1994Editing the Encyclopaedia HebraicaCriticism of the occupationJewish philosophy centered on commandments

Born: 29 January 1903, Riga
Died: 18 August 1994, Jerusalem
Occupation: biochemist, journalist, philosopher, pedagogue
Education: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Founded: The committee for a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East (1962)

Yeshayahu Leibowitz was born in 1903 in Riga

Leibowitz was born in Riga in 1903 to a religious Zionist family. His father was a lumber trader, and his sister Nechama Leibowitz later became a Bible scholar. In 1919 the family fled to Berlin.

He studied chemistry and philosophy in Berlin and earned a doctorate in chemistry in 1924. He later studied biochemistry and medicine in Cologne. After the Gestapo looked for him, he moved to Basel and finished a medical doctorate there in 1934.

He moved to the Land of Israel in 1935 and began teaching at the Hebrew University in 1936. During the War of Independence he commanded a platoon in the Haganah. In 1949 he headed a religious workers list that won no seat.

He became a full professor in 1961 and edited the Encyclopaedia Hebraica until the publishers dismissed him in 1971. He wrote many books on Jewish thought, Maimonides, science and politics. He was a sharp critic of Israeli governments, especially over the occupied territories.

He retired in 1970 but kept teaching. He died in Jerusalem in 1994 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.