(This article is about the Polish-born American philosopher. For the Polish Hasidic rabbi, see Avraham Yehoshua Heshel. For the 17th-century chief rabbi of Krakow, see Avraham Yehoshua Heschel.) Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972) was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, authored a number of widely read books on Jewish philosophy and was active in the American Civil Rights movement.