During these years he hebraized his name to “Dan Yaalon”, something that signaled an established life in Israel, and married Rita Singer. Together Rita and Dan shared nearly six decades and established a family that includes two sons and daughters-in-law, and seven grandchildren. As a PhD student in the early 1950s, the soil chemist Avraham Adolf Reifenberg became Yaalon’s advisor. Yaalon was impressed by the Autophagy activator small Department of Soil Science’s focus on arid zone soils, common worldwide but vastly understudied at that time with significant questions and needs that ranged from the local to global. In day-to-day terms however, Yaalon commented, “Doing

research in those early days, with meager resources, involved overcoming many difficulties. Essentially self-taught we did our best to establish the research and teaching laboratories. These comments reveal perspectives strongly held by Yaalon about life and work. To Yaalon, “ingrained curiosity” was the basis for successful engagement with science. Yaalon’s university education, in Denmark, Sweden, and Israel, challenged him in ways that fed his native curiosity and gave him confidence that Earth’s soil was well worth a life’s work. The making of a scientist according to Yaalon, included much that is fortuitous, unplanned, and even unfair, but what makes

a successful scientist is click here “grabbing an opportunity when it arises.” Whether in science or in life, he said, “much is due to accidental events but what you make of it is very much subject to your choice and efforts.” Given the gravity of the “accidental events” in Yaalon’s life, these words underscore an incredibly positive message about science, life, and living. Soil Science has no age but will always be remembered through its history. These words were used in Resveratrol 2000 at the Ghent University to honor Dan Yaalon’s

contributions to the history of soil science (Gabriels 2000). Dan was born in 1924 in a small town in the former Czechoslovakia. His original name was Hardy Berger but he changed it shortly after coming to Israel. “Yaalon” was a play on the German meaning of Berger (a mountain dweller), his mother’s Czech surname Jellinek (a mountain goat) and the Hebrew word “Aliyah” (literally, ascent), which united the three concepts. Now it is our time to say good-bye to Dan and to honor his achievements. Dan was not the first to study the history of soil science, but he contributed richly and uniquely to its growing archive of scholarship, and was the moving force in creating a community in which it could prosper. And Dan saw history as but one component of the study of soils in the context of the human experience. While the philosophy and sociology of soil science remain in the incipient stage, Dan’s vision made a place for them at the table and he actively encouraged other scientists to take up study of these topics.