 Born to an observant Jewish family in Riga in 1903, Leibowitz gained his education at the Gymnasium, with concurrent home-schooling for his Jewish studies, before the family fled Russia in 1919 for Berlin. At the University of Berlin, Leibowitz studied chemistry and philosophy, receiving his doctorate in the former in 1924. After studying at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute from 1926–1928, Leibowitz went onto study medicine in Koln and Heidelberg, though with the Nazis gaining power he would gain his formal medical degree in Basel. In 1935 he moved to Palestine, initially as professor of biochemistry at the Hebrew University, going on to be appointed as head of biological and organic chemistry and professor of neurophysiology at the Medical School, as well as lecturing on the history and philosophy of science. Yet these formal academic appointments formed but one side of his work, and far from the most public, for in addition Leibowitz taught Jewish thought, whether in an academic context, in small study groups, or on television and radio, with a number of these broadcasts and study-group notes having since been published. But aside from these activities and his being editor in chief of several volumes of the Encyclopedia Hebraica, it was for his political interventions that Leibowitz would gain most notoriety on the Israeli public scene, whether in his criticism of the religious parties as the “kept mistress” (Judaism, 115) of the Israeli government, his argument as early as 1968 that Israel should withdraw from the newly-occupied West Bank and Gaza strip, or his public call for conscientious objectors from the time of the Lebanon war of 1982 and subsequently in the Palestinian territories. Leibowitz’s ability to stir up public controversy was in evidence as late as 1993, the year before he died, in a speech to the Israel Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, where he reiterated his call on soldiers to refuse to serve in the Territories, using, not for the first time, highly provocative language comparing special units of the Israeli army to the SS. The speech followed the announcement that he was to receive the Israel prize – the country’s most prestigious civilian award – in recognition of his life’s work, a move that precipitated an appeal to the Supreme Court, and a threat to boycott the ceremony by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Leibowitz, however, saved everyone further embarrassment by declining the award.