Heschel with Fritz Rothschild

A student and colleague of Heschel’s, Fritz Alexander Rothschild (b. October 4, 1919; d. March 7, 2009) was the Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Professor of Philosophy at The Jewish Theological Seminary. Rothschild wrote Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism, the first introduction to the thought and writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel.

He like Heschel was born in Europe and fled before the war. Rothschild escaped to Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe) in 1938 and came to the United States in 1948. He was ordained at JTS in 1955 and received his doctorate under Heschel’s supervision in 1968. He was a longtime member of the JTS faculty.

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I value Heschel's teaching that we are not all prophets but there should be something of the prophet in every one of us. Dr. Arnold Eisen An invitation to Sabbath keeping that was at once thoroughly Jewish but also universally available—and more than that, necessary for our survival. Rev. Wil Gafney, PhD The encounter vividly encompasses for me Heschel's remarkable qualities . . . not only his warmth, caring, humor, and humanity, but his insistence on rigorous and careful scholarship.  Rabbi Eli Schochet