The Jewish Peace Fellowship’s Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Award is presented to an individual or organization that has made exceptional contributions to peace and justice in the Jewish tradition.
We are pleased to announce that Albert Vorspan is the recipient this year of our Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Award. The quest for peace among nations and social justice at home and abroad has been a lifelong pursuit for Albert Vorspan.
Al — as everybody calls him —Vorspan has been one of the most consistent and influential voices within and outside organized American Jewish life. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1924, he served as director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, as well as senior vice president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now the Union for Reform Judaism).
Above all, he was and remains a vital and prophetic voice of faith and reason within American Jewry’s Reform Movement, and also played a huge role in emphasizing ethical concerns and moral behavior to generations of Jews, both religious and secular.
Al Vorspan has never been shy about publicly expressing his concerns about crucial public issues even in the face of criticism by some in the organized Jewish community. In 1966, for example, he condemned American involvement in Vietnam, drawing the wrath of the war’s supporters. In The New York Times Magazine, in 1988, he criticized Israeli government policies following the first Palestinian Intifada, writing, ‘Whether we accept it or not, every night’s television news confirms it: Israelis now seem the oppressors, Palestinians the victims,’ a sentiment which did not endear him to some in the Jewish community.
His book, Jewish Dimensions of Social Justice: Tough Moral Choices of Our Time (co-authored with David Saperstein), has been a voice of prophetic Judaism. Another of his books, Giants of Justice, deals with contributions to social justice by such Jewish luminaries as Louis Brandeis, Albert Einstein, Stephen Wise, Louis Marshall, Henrietta Szold, David Dubinsky, Abraham Cronbach and Herbert Lehman.
The Jewish Peace Fellowship is proud to present this year’s Heschel Award to Albert Vorspan.