"There have been few if any books on Jewish people who studied the various facets of natural history. There have certainly been those who have done so in the past and in the current world there are many but, for a host of reasons, natural history as a career or serious avocation was much less common in the past. To Life: Jews Exploring Nature offers a unique exploration of Jewish engagement with nature through compelling biographies of eight selected subjects, including infamous ornithologist Nathan Leopold, and intrepid agronomist and spy Aaron Aaronsohn, among others. These individuals, scientists, naturalists, and explorers among them, manifested different aspects of Jewish identity and made significant contributions to their fields. The accounts place the contributions of this diverse mix of individuals into a rich biographical context that connects the personal with the professional, thus providing insights into their lives and work"-- Provided by publisher."To Life explores the Jewish relationship with nature by illuminating significant Jewish thinkers who increased in important ways our understanding of various aspects of natural history. In eight compelling chapter-long biographies, naturalist Joel Greenberg demonstrates the diversity of both Jewish identity and the natural sciences.Greenbergs rich biographical sketches spotlight great Jewish scientists who not only made major contributions to the study of the natural world but also led rich and colorful lives: botanist and spy Aaron Aaronsohn, zoologist Libby Henrietta Hyman, infamous ornithologist Nathan Leopold, mammalogist Philip Hershkovitz, arachnologist Herbert Levi, herpetologist Hymen Marx, public health entomologist Andrew Spielman, and ecologist Joan Ehrenfeld.

These individuals manifested different aspects of Jewish identity-some observant, some secular-but all were affected in one way or another by their being Jewish. By exploring the relationship between Jews and nature through the lives of these figures, Greenberg shares new and underrecognized aspects of Jewish and environmental history and opens new portals into the fields they studied"-- Provided by publisher.