Spring Break
Professor receives book honor
by Ruth Orbach
Staff writer
News | 3/18/08
Posted online at 2:29 AM EST on 3/18/08
/ Last updated at 6:59 PM EST on 3/18/08
Prof. Edward Kaplan (ROMS) was awarded the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in the American Jewish Studies category for Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-72, which details the three decades since Heschel's emigration from Germany to the United States in 1940.
The book is a follow up to Kaplan's 1998 work, Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness. Heschel, an observant Jew, made religion accessible to modern Jews in America, and his life and works tell the social and political life of Jews before the Holocaust in Europe and throughout 30 years in American history, Kaplan said.
"I felt very good," Kaplan said on winning the award. "It is a very unusual pleasure to have other people recognize what you did for yourself."
After Heschel escaped Nazi Germany and came to America, he joined the staff of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He did not like the Reform Judaism practiced at the college and in 1945 moved to the Jewish Theological Seminary of the Conservative movement in New York.
Kaplan, chairman of the Department of Romantic Studies, said he has been intrigued and fascinated by Heschel New York. Kaplan and Heschel participated together in protests of the war in Vietnam.
"I read a couple of his books and found a unique combination of social action and spiritualism," Kaplan said. Also a scholar of French literature, Kaplan was drawn to the lyricism of Heschel's works, particularly Man is Not Alone.
"I was overwhelmed by the lyrical style and philosophical and theological discourse," Kaplan said of Heschel's work.
Kaplan published his first article on Heschel in 1971 and began to write on Heschel regularly.
"I was invited to write a biography on Heschel by the late Samuel Dresner," Kaplan said. "The entire project took about 18 years."
Kaplan spent the first five years of his work on Heschel researching his early life in Europe. "Volume I was very difficult because I was unfamiliar with the history of Europe," he said. Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness spans Europe from World War I to the outbreak of World War II, when Heschel emigrated to America. There was a nine-year gap between the publication of Kaplan's first volume and this one.
"It took me almost 10 more years because there was such a tremendous amount of documentation that I had to digest," Kaplan said. He performed a variety of kinds of research, including interviewing, searching through archives, and going over Heschel's works.
Kaplan's relationship with religion changed while writing the books, he said. "I became more committed as a Jew and I have a much greater drive to learn about Judaism. … Heschel brought me back to Judaism, a tremendously invigorating commitment for me," he said.
For Kaplan, writing the biography was "an act of gratitude to Heschel" for helping him to rediscover his religious roots.
The book is a follow up to Kaplan's 1998 work, Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness. Heschel, an observant Jew, made religion accessible to modern Jews in America, and his life and works tell the social and political life of Jews before the Holocaust in Europe and throughout 30 years in American history, Kaplan said.
"I felt very good," Kaplan said on winning the award. "It is a very unusual pleasure to have other people recognize what you did for yourself."
After Heschel escaped Nazi Germany and came to America, he joined the staff of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He did not like the Reform Judaism practiced at the college and in 1945 moved to the Jewish Theological Seminary of the Conservative movement in New York.
Kaplan, chairman of the Department of Romantic Studies, said he has been intrigued and fascinated by Heschel New York. Kaplan and Heschel participated together in protests of the war in Vietnam.
"I read a couple of his books and found a unique combination of social action and spiritualism," Kaplan said. Also a scholar of French literature, Kaplan was drawn to the lyricism of Heschel's works, particularly Man is Not Alone.
"I was overwhelmed by the lyrical style and philosophical and theological discourse," Kaplan said of Heschel's work.
Kaplan published his first article on Heschel in 1971 and began to write on Heschel regularly.
"I was invited to write a biography on Heschel by the late Samuel Dresner," Kaplan said. "The entire project took about 18 years."
Kaplan spent the first five years of his work on Heschel researching his early life in Europe. "Volume I was very difficult because I was unfamiliar with the history of Europe," he said. Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness spans Europe from World War I to the outbreak of World War II, when Heschel emigrated to America. There was a nine-year gap between the publication of Kaplan's first volume and this one.
"It took me almost 10 more years because there was such a tremendous amount of documentation that I had to digest," Kaplan said. He performed a variety of kinds of research, including interviewing, searching through archives, and going over Heschel's works.
Kaplan's relationship with religion changed while writing the books, he said. "I became more committed as a Jew and I have a much greater drive to learn about Judaism. … Heschel brought me back to Judaism, a tremendously invigorating commitment for me," he said.
For Kaplan, writing the biography was "an act of gratitude to Heschel" for helping him to rediscover his religious roots.
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