Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel אברהם יהושע השל
thinker who marched at Selma beside King
Born in Warsaw into a family descended from the Rebbe of Apt, he studied in Berlin, was deported from Germany in 1938 and got out to America in 1940. His mother and three sisters were murdered. He taught at Hebrew Union College and then at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
His books—Man Is Not Alone, God in Search of Man, The Sabbath, The Prophets—addressed not scholars but those who wish to understand how religion differs from habit. The Sabbath describes Jewish time as a "palace in time" that takes up no space on the ground.
In 1965 he walked in the front rank of the Selma to Montgomery march beside Martin Luther King and wrote: "I felt my legs were praying." He also spoke against the war in Vietnam and took part in the discussions around the Second Vatican Council, securing the removal from the document of any call for the conversion of the Jews.
On the timeline
Places
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- The Sabbath, New York, 1951 — Jewish time as a «palace in time»
Basis: documents and evidence.