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Abraham Joshua Heschel was an internationally known scholar, author, activist, and theologian. He was born in Warsaw, Poland into a distinguished family of Hasidic rebbes, and studied philosophy in Berlin, Germany. In 1938 he was deported from Frankfurt to Warsaw where he escaped to London just before the Nazi invasion. After a brief time in London he immigrated to the United States, first teaching at the Hebrew Union College and then at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he taught as Professor of Ethics and Mysticism until his death in 1972. In addition to his active participation in social justice issues and his interfaith work, Heschel was also a scholar and religious thinker who made significant contributions to Jewish studies. As a philosopher of religion, his goal was to make the spiritual insights of Judaism understandable and over the course of his lifetime influenced generations of Jews and non-Jews. The Abraham Joshua Heschel Papers span the years 1880 to 1998 and document Abraham Joshua Heschel's personal, academic, and public life. Items in this collection include correspondence, writings by and about Heschel, typescripts, clippings, printed material, and a small amount of photographs and artifacts. The materials in the collection provide insight to Heschel's identity as a spiritual leader and how this role was inextricably connected to his personal and professional life. The collection is organized into the following series: Audio, Correspondence, Personal and Family Materials, Public Activity, Restricted, and Writings.