Abraham Joshua Heschel was born in Warsaw, in 1907, into a Hasidic family. He studied philosophy and criticism of the Bible in Berlin. During a stay in Frankfurt, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland, where he was a professor in Warsaw. Later he emigrated to London and finally, in 1940, to New York. His mother was killed by the Nazis and three of his sisters died deported in the fields. Heschel decided never to return to Germany, Austria or Poland.

When he took refuge in the United States, he was already a known rabbi, poet and spokesman for Jewish tradition and modernity. In his maturity he identified with the Hebrew prophets. Heschel considered that his teachings were a call to social action. He was an important activist for the rights of North Americans of African origin and expressed himself vehemently against the Vietnam War. This photograph is well known in which Heschel (second on the right) appears along with Martin Luther King, Jr. (fourth on the right), during the civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. Abraham Joshua Heschel also worked to improve relations between Judaism and Christianity.
He died in 1972.