Theological Affinities in the Writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Abstract The Photograph Of Abraham Joshua Heschel walking arm in arm with Martin Luther King, Jr., in the front row of marchers at Selma has become an icon of American Jewish life, and of black-Jewish relations. Reprinted in Jewish textbooks, synagogue bulletins, and studies of ecumenical relations, the picture has come to symbolize the great moment of symbiosis of the two communities, black and Jewish, which today seems shattered. When Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, Henry Gates, or Cornel West speaks of the relationship between blacks and Jews as it might be, and as they wish it would become, they invoke the moments when Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King marched arm in arm at Selma, prayed together in protest at Arlington National Cemetery, and stood side by side in the pulpit of Riverside Church.