What do you think?
Rate this book
Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement
New in the acclaimed Jewish Lives A biography of the rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who became a symbol of the marriage between religion and social justice
“Zelizer’s book is absolutely riveting, both as a study of a truly important figure within Jewish thought and in providing insight into the politics of the 1960s.”—Sandy Levinson, Balkinization
“When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” So said Polish-born American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) of his involvement in the 1965 Selma civil rights march alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Heschel, who spoke with a fiery moralistic fervor, dedicated his career to the struggle to improve the human condition through faith. In this new biography, author Julian Zelizer tracks Heschel’s early years and foundational influences—his childhood in Warsaw and early education in Hasidism, his studies in late 1920s and early 1930s Berlin, and the fortuitous opportunity, which brought him to the United States and saved him from the Holocaust, to teach at Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. This deep and complex portrait places Heschel at the crucial intersection between religion and progressive politics in mid-twentieth-century America. To this day Heschel remains a symbol of the fight to make progressive Jewish values relevant in the secular world.
“Zelizer’s book is absolutely riveting, both as a study of a truly important figure within Jewish thought and in providing insight into the politics of the 1960s.”—Sandy Levinson, Balkinization
“When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” So said Polish-born American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) of his involvement in the 1965 Selma civil rights march alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Heschel, who spoke with a fiery moralistic fervor, dedicated his career to the struggle to improve the human condition through faith. In this new biography, author Julian Zelizer tracks Heschel’s early years and foundational influences—his childhood in Warsaw and early education in Hasidism, his studies in late 1920s and early 1930s Berlin, and the fortuitous opportunity, which brought him to the United States and saved him from the Holocaust, to teach at Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. This deep and complex portrait places Heschel at the crucial intersection between religion and progressive politics in mid-twentieth-century America. To this day Heschel remains a symbol of the fight to make progressive Jewish values relevant in the secular world.
328 pages, Hardcover
Published October 26, 2021
25 people are currently reading
119 people want to read
About the author
Julian E. Zelizer
38 books65 followersJulian E. Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 25, 2022
Just a fantastic biography all around. I am absolutely enthralled with the lessons that can be learned from Heschel’s life, and what those implications might mean today. I’m especially surprised that Heschel would condemn the Vietnam war but then go on to justify the preemptive strikes by the Israeli state. I’m also blown away by Heschel’s influence in the Civil Rights movement. What an absolute inspirational figure. The research and telling in this biography were well composed and it is absolutely worth the quick read.
September 20, 2022
Abraham Heschel was a Polish Hasidic theologian who escaped Berlin during the Holocaust to teach Jewish mysticism at Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. Herschel was a prolific author and wrote throughout his life. He combined his religious practice with social injustice protest including marching at Selma with Martin Luther King and protesting the war in Viet Nam. Heschel was woke before it was a thing.
October 2, 2023
Heschel's words go beyond prose or poetry for me. His writings resonate and manifest as music to my mind and hope for my heart. Knowing that I was going to be spending some time in Berlin, I wanted to learn more about his life and the time he spent studying at the University of Berlin (now called the Humboldt University of Berlin). Zelizer brings a very thoughtful and well-informed perspective that frames a portrait of Heschel with both depth and dimension. It's the kind of biography that can penetrate perspective and breathe new life into the courage to challenge old paradigms.
Along these lines, Heschel argued that the greatest danger we must find the courage to confront stems from both individual and collective indifference: "There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil. We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done to other people." Through his lifelong engagement with the Hebrew Prophets, he found this type of "indifference to evil to be more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous. A silent justification, it makes possible an evil erupting. As an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepted." (1966)
Heschel's personal prophetic warning of the process of indifference giving air to the normalization of the morally abhorrent echoed in my mind as I recently toured the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany (just outside of Berlin). This was not a camp established out in the remote forests of Germany or Poland, rather, it was woven into the fabric of the community of Oranienburg with residential homes buttressed right against its perimeter of concrete walls. Prisoners were literally marched through the front and back yards of countless citizens whose silent justification literally 'made possible an evil erupting.' It added a layer of heartwrenching sadness and nausea that I had never previously fathomed. What made it all the more heinous - is the understanding that we are all capable of - perhaps in certain cases even prone to - this type of indifference.
This brings us to another Heschel thesis - "Some are guilty and all are responsible."
And what was Heschel's response to such atrocities of indifference - which included the Holocaust (which claimed the lives of his family members), racism and seemingly unending war, etc.? It was a life of "radical amazement" and a consistently optimistic posture full of awe and wonder. He literally marched to a beat that I want reverberating through my own soul - music to my mind and hope for my heart.
Along these lines, Heschel argued that the greatest danger we must find the courage to confront stems from both individual and collective indifference: "There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil. We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done to other people." Through his lifelong engagement with the Hebrew Prophets, he found this type of "indifference to evil to be more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous. A silent justification, it makes possible an evil erupting. As an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepted." (1966)
Heschel's personal prophetic warning of the process of indifference giving air to the normalization of the morally abhorrent echoed in my mind as I recently toured the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany (just outside of Berlin). This was not a camp established out in the remote forests of Germany or Poland, rather, it was woven into the fabric of the community of Oranienburg with residential homes buttressed right against its perimeter of concrete walls. Prisoners were literally marched through the front and back yards of countless citizens whose silent justification literally 'made possible an evil erupting.' It added a layer of heartwrenching sadness and nausea that I had never previously fathomed. What made it all the more heinous - is the understanding that we are all capable of - perhaps in certain cases even prone to - this type of indifference.
This brings us to another Heschel thesis - "Some are guilty and all are responsible."
And what was Heschel's response to such atrocities of indifference - which included the Holocaust (which claimed the lives of his family members), racism and seemingly unending war, etc.? It was a life of "radical amazement" and a consistently optimistic posture full of awe and wonder. He literally marched to a beat that I want reverberating through my own soul - music to my mind and hope for my heart.
February 20, 2022
I wanted to give it 4.5 or 5 stars. I loved Zelizer’s descriptions of Heschel’s early life in Europe and his passionate participation (and leadership) in the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Unfortunately, a number of issues knocked it down a couple of stars:
- Many copy editing errors (one example: when referring to the institution at 3080 Broadway, Zelizer alternates between "JTS" and "the JTS")
- A handful of factual errors (he misidentifies Wolfe Kelman, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly from 1941-1991, as "the Director of JTS,” for example)
- No acknowledgement of the existence of Black Jews or organizations like Hatzaad Harishon and the Association of Black and White Jews from that era. Zelizer makes the assumption that Black communities and Jewish communities did not overlap: "Jewish Americans... going down south... to defend African Americans…" (pp 158) and "Jewish leaders who were becoming concerned about relations with African Americans…" (pp 214). While Heschel and many of his contemporaries may have made that assumption given the rhetoric of the era (Sociologist Bruce D. Haynes points out that Rabbi Harold Goldfarb, then the executive director of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia, “insisted in 1977 that blacks can’t be Jews.” (The Soul of Judaism: Jews of African Descent in America, pp 10)), that was many decades ago, and it would have been refreshing for Zelizer to provide perspective by at least acknowledging the overlap. The Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia has certainly come a long way as per their statement from June 2020: “We will follow the lead of Jews of color and the wisdom of other communities of color to learn what we need to know, what we need to do, and how best to do it.”
Unfortunately, a number of issues knocked it down a couple of stars:
- Many copy editing errors (one example: when referring to the institution at 3080 Broadway, Zelizer alternates between "JTS" and "the JTS")
- A handful of factual errors (he misidentifies Wolfe Kelman, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly from 1941-1991, as "the Director of JTS,” for example)
- No acknowledgement of the existence of Black Jews or organizations like Hatzaad Harishon and the Association of Black and White Jews from that era. Zelizer makes the assumption that Black communities and Jewish communities did not overlap: "Jewish Americans... going down south... to defend African Americans…" (pp 158) and "Jewish leaders who were becoming concerned about relations with African Americans…" (pp 214). While Heschel and many of his contemporaries may have made that assumption given the rhetoric of the era (Sociologist Bruce D. Haynes points out that Rabbi Harold Goldfarb, then the executive director of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia, “insisted in 1977 that blacks can’t be Jews.” (The Soul of Judaism: Jews of African Descent in America, pp 10)), that was many decades ago, and it would have been refreshing for Zelizer to provide perspective by at least acknowledging the overlap. The Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia has certainly come a long way as per their statement from June 2020: “We will follow the lead of Jews of color and the wisdom of other communities of color to learn what we need to know, what we need to do, and how best to do it.”
October 9, 2022
The biography of a true social justice warrior of the 20th c., whose influence spread through the Civil Rights and anti-war movement as well as through the halls of rabbinical seminaries in North America. Rabbi Heschel is probably best known by the general public for the iconic photograph of him marching arm-in-arm with Dr. Martin Luther King and other religious leaders in Selma, Alabama in 1965. This was a man whose credo throughout his life was , "Justice, Justice shall you pursue!" and he tried to follow in the footsteps of the Biblical prophets who weren't afraid to speak truth to power.
A powerful and thoughtful book.
A powerful and thoughtful book.
December 28, 2023
uffff buenísima biografía
un hombre sensible, inteligente, un rabino queriendo moralizar la política, luchando por los derechos de todos, no solamente de los judíos, me encanta su frase de "marchar es rezar con los pies"
también la de "la gente no debiera rezar para ser salvada sino para ser merecedora de ser salvada"
su libro Sabath es lo máximo
él también
un hombre sensible, inteligente, un rabino queriendo moralizar la política, luchando por los derechos de todos, no solamente de los judíos, me encanta su frase de "marchar es rezar con los pies"
también la de "la gente no debiera rezar para ser salvada sino para ser merecedora de ser salvada"
su libro Sabath es lo máximo
él también
November 27, 2023
A close up historical biography of a philosopher, writer and social justice advocate as well as a man of deep Jewish spiritual and religious upbringing uprooted from family due to Nazi terror and murder of most of his family.
January 31, 2023
Concise, readable telling of Rabbi Heschel's journey from Polish Hassidism to American activism inspired by his faith.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews