[1] Lebowitz has published more than five hundred papers concerning statistical physics and science in general, and he is one of the founders and editors of the Journal of Statistical Physics, one of the most important peer-reviewed journals concerning scientific research in this area.

He is also an active member of the human rights community and a long-term co-chair of the Committee of Concerned Scientists.

During World War II he was deported with his family to Auschwitz, where his father, his mother, and his younger sister were killed in 1944.

After being liberated from the camp, he moved to United States by boat, and he studied in an Orthodox Jewish school and Brooklyn College.

He moved to the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1957 and to the Belfer Graduate School of Science of Yeshiva University in 1959.

"[7] Among other recognitions, Lebowitz was awarded the Max Planck Medal in 2007 "for his important contributions to the statistical physics of equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems, in particular his contributions to the theory of phase transitions, the dynamics of infinite systems, and the stationary non-equilibrium states" and "for his promoting of new directions of this field at its farthest front, and for enthusiastically introducing several generations of scientists to the field.