Celebrate Jewish Book Month with the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center at 130 Centre street in Vineyard Haven, with a special reading on Sunday, Nov. 18, at 2 p.m. by author and seasonal resident Professor Edward Kaplan. He will speak about his new book, Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America 1940-1972.

Refreshments will follow, as well as the center’s book fair, with books for all ages.

Abraham Joshua Heschel was born in 1907 in Warsaw and raised in a Hasidic community. He escaped Nazism and immigrated to the U.S. in 1940. This lively and readable book tells the comprehensive story of his life and work in America, his politics and personality, and how he came to influence not only Jewish debate but also wider religious and cultural debates in the postwar decades.

Edward Kaplan is Kevy and Hortense Kaiserman Professor in the Humanities at Brandeis University, where he teaches courses in French, comparative literature, and religious studies. He has been writing on Heschel for many years and is the author of various publications. He has been a member of The Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center since 1943.