ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL: A LIFE OF RADICAL AMAZEMENT, by Julian E. Zelizer

Sandy Levinson

     I strongly recommend this new biography of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel by Princeton historian Julian Zelizer.  It is of obvious interest to anyone interested in Jewish thought and theology.  It is part of the Yale University Press's notable series "Jewish Lives."  But what makes it of special interest to a far broader audience is the emphasis on Heschel's involvement in central civil rights struggles of the 1960s.  Most people, I suspect, have seen the iconic photograph of him with Martin Luther King, who became very close friends.  But Heschel also threw himself into the movement against the Vietnam War and the struggle to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate.

    So why is this book so important at this time?  The answer has already been given:  I like many other people who came of age in the 1960s grew up in a culture where progressive political and social movements relied on leadership provided by religious figures.  It was no small matter to analogize King and Heschel to the Hebrew Prophets (about whom Heschel wrote a central book, originally his doctoral dissertation in Germany but published in a revised version in the 1960s).  At the time, I think that those of us who were secular simply identified the prophets with a variety of attractive values attached to social justice.  But Zelizer makes it crystal clear that Heschel, like the Prophets he wrote about, was a strong believer in a living God who demanded justice and who, indeed, as a living God would inflict punishment on those who ignored the Divine decrees about living a just life.  In today's world Heschel might well be analogized to some Evangelical Protestants who similarly believe in living God who is judging us and punishing us for our decadence (from their point of view).   Most progressives today, I suspect, might admire Heschel's political values but feel completely estranged from, and possibly embarrassed by, the theology that helped in fact to explain his political zeal.  

    Today "religion-in-politics" is identified, at least in the US, with conservatism and, indeed, the rise of Donald J. Trump.  Although there are certainly some progressive figures within the religious community, they pale in importance to the conservative religionists who are at the head of the culture war that is tearing the country apart.  And the response of many/most secular liberals/progressives has been to "get religion out of politics" rather than allying with progressive religious figures who in fact share our politics.  That may well be as much of a mistake as the repudiation by many in the 1960s of the American flag, which was handed over to the Right instead of cherished as a symbol of what the country, at its best, might actually be.

    In any event, 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.