Abraham Joshua Heschel
Polish-born American rabbi, theologian, and civil rights leader
He is remembered for his social activism alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and for his influential writings on religious experience.[1][2]
Quick Facts
- Denomination
- Orthodox, Conservative
- Born
- 11 January 1907
- Birthplace
- Warsaw, Congress Poland
- Died
- 23 December 1972
- Place of death
- New York, New York, U.S.
- Spouse
- Sylvia Straus (1946)
- Children
- Susannah
- Profession
- Rabbi
- theologian
- philosopher
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
He earned a doctorate at the University of Berlin and rabbinic ordination at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums.[3] In 1938, Heschel was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland.[4] He fled Warsaw for London six weeks before the German invasion of Poland.[4] In 1945, he became professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, a post he held for the rest of his life.[1]
He married concert pianist Sylvia Straus on December 10, 1946, and their daughter Susannah became a Jewish scholar.[5] Heschel died on December 23, 1972.[6] Rabbi Moshe Mordecai and Reizel Perlow Heschel welcomed their son Abraham into the world in Warsaw during 1907.[1] After his father Moshe died from influenza in 1916, a Gerrer Hasid served as Abraham's tutor and acquainted him with the ideas of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk.[7]
March 1940 marked Heschel's arrival in New York City; he then spent a five-year period on the faculty of Hebrew Union College.[8]
What the cited sources add
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute notes that Heschel believed understanding the divine spark in each person prevents hatred.[1] At the 1963 National Conference on Religion and Race, Heschel called the struggle against racism "God's gift to America" and "a magnificent spiritual opportunity"[1] A Huffington Post article reports that Heschel met King at that conference, where Heschel gave the opening address and King gave the closing speech.[9] The same source states that after "Bloody Sunday," Heschel led 800 people to FBI headquarters to protest the agency's failure to protect demonstrators.[9]
Heschel later wrote of the Selma march, "I felt my legs were praying"[9] The Huffington Post article also notes that Heschel co-chaired the National Emergency Committee of Clergy Concerned About Vietnam with Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan and Lutheran pastor Richard John Neuhaus.[9]
References
- "Heschel, Abraham Joshua" The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. Accessed July 10, 2026.. facts only, no text reused. kinginstitute.stanford.edu
- Wikipedia, "Abraham Joshua Heschel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gillman, "Conservative Judaism: The New Century", Behrman House Inc., 1993, p. 163; Heschel, Susannah. "Theological Affinities in the Writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King, Jr." The Rabbinical Assembly, 1998, PDF.; "Heschel Selected Photos", Dartmouth College (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abraham Joshua Heschel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness, Edward Kaplan (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abraham Joshua Heschel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Abraham Joshua Heschel; Abraham Joshua Heschel (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abraham Joshua Heschel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Interview with Susannah Heschel (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abraham Joshua Heschel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Legacy of Abraham Joshua Heschel." Tikkun. Accessed May 25, 2014.; "A Rabbi of His Time, With a Charisma That Transcends It." The New York Times. Accessed May 25, 2014.; "Heschel, Abraham Joshua" The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. Accessed July 10, 2026. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abraham Joshua Heschel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Abraham Joshua Heschel, Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, edited by Steven T. Katz, p.132, B'nai B'rith Books, Washington D.C. 1993 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Abraham Joshua Heschel" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Abraham Joshua Heschel (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Dreier, "'Selma's' Missing Rabbi", Huffington Post, January 17, 2015. facts only, no text reused. huffingtonpost.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Abraham Joshua Heschel (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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