Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 1907-1972

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Abraham Joshua Heschel was an internationally known scholar, author, activist, and theologian. He was born in Warsaw, Poland into a distinguished family of rabbis. Heschel studied philosophy in Berlin, Germany and was deported from Frankfurt to Warsaw where he escaped to London just before the Nazi invasion. After a brief time in London, he immigrated to the United States, first teaching at the Hebrew Union College and then at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he taught as Professor of Ethics and Mysticism until his death in 1972.

In addition to his active participation in social justice issues including civil rights and the plight of the Jews in the Soviet Union, and his interfaith work, Heschel was also a scholar and religious thinker who made significant contributions to every field of Jewish studies. As a philosopher of religion, his goal was to make the spiritual insights of Judaism understandable and over the course of his lifetime influenced generations of Jews and non-Jews, leaving a lasting impression all over the world.

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Birth 1907-01-11

Death 1972-12-23

Americans

Yiddish,

Hebrew,

German,

English

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