About the Book

October 2026

Volume 1

In Life Against Death, Volume 1, Rabbi Irving Greenberg curates, introduces, and reflects on the most important essays written over the course of his lifetime on America and Israel (1965 – 2025). These influential works recognized as classic in his oeuvre identify turning points in Jewish life along with policies key to successful Jewish living in the modern world.

Greenberg begins by reflecting on the universal struggle of life against death in the world. Judaism and the Jewish people are meant to serve as an avant-garde in repairing the world by overcoming the enemies of life, including oppression and war.

In Part 1, “America,” he contemplates the movement of Jews to the center and champions Jewish upgrades on college campuses as well as an embrace of pluralism as necessary responses to Jews’ acceptance in open society and endangerment from totalitarianism.

In Part 2, “Israel,” he offers vision and guidance on the religious significance of the State of Israel, on interactions of Israel and American Jewry, and on a new ethic of power that relinquishes purity for the opportunity to create real life in the real world.

New introductions to each essay narrate behind-the-scenes stories and breakthroughs formative to its contents, as well as Greenberg’s hindsight: evolving thoughts, recognitions of past errors, comparisons of his predictions vs realities, and insights on relevance of the core principles in our changed times.

And two essays have never been printed before. “The Religious Significance of the State of Israel,” was given as a conference paper in 1970 but never published, until now. “Israel and World Jewry After October 7” was written in 2025 as a needed response to the fundamental shift in Israel’s political and strategy consensus and the transformation of Israel’s image and world status.

Readers will get to know Yitz Greenberg as a thought leader, an activist, a man, and a Jew.