Arthur Waskow

Arthur Waskow

Scholar, Activist, Spiritual Progressive

Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections

2015

Moshe Kornfield, Scott Meyer, Elias Sacks, Stephanie Yuhas, Andrew Violet, Jane Thaler

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English

Born in Baltimore, Arthur Waskow (b. 1933) received his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Wisconsin, becoming an expert on race riots and racial justice movements in the United States. At the time of the 1969 Freedom Seder, Waskow was well known throughout the country as a speaker, historian, writer, and activist. His high profile attracted many of the attendees to the seder. Authoring the Freedom Seder was part of a transformational moment for Waskow, as he began to synthesize his Jewish upbringing with the radical politics that he had adopted as an adult. Afterwards, he continued to work as a scholar of American politics at a progressive think tank in Washington D.C., but he would begin to search for “the spiritual roots of the politics.” Much of Waskow’s writing after 1969 articulated a progressive political agenda grounded in Jewish spirituality. Along with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Waskow helped found the Jewish Renewal movement, a progressive stream of American Judaism. In 1995, Waskow was formally ordained as a rabbi after many years of working as a lay Jewish teacher. Arthur Waskow SCHOLAR ACTIVIST SPIRITUAL PROGRESSIVE