Yesterday we noted that the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel would have neo-Nazis to thank for having a section of Missouri roadway named for him. After the National Social Movement, a neo-Nazi group, adopted the highway near Springfield, legislators sought to strike back by renaming that highway for Heschel, who fled Europe ahead of the Nazis’ advance.
But today’s New York Times reports that Heschel’s daughter, Susannah Heschel, is against the move.
Rabbi Heschel’s daughter, Susannah Heschel, the Eli Black professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth, said Monday that while she appreciated their intentions, attaching her father’s name to a road cleaned by neo-Nazis would be “vulgar” and would “dishonor” him.
Dr. Heschel noted that her father’s mother, three of his sisters and much of his extended family were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
“While I appreciate their wanting to — embarrass Nazis, let’s say, it goes too far,” Dr. Heschel, who studies Jewish-Christian relations in Germany and the history of anti-Semitism, said in an interview. “It’s inappropriate. I don’t think that my father would have felt honored by this.”
Dr. Heschel expressed similar sentiments to lawmakers after the provision had been adopted as part of a major transportation bill, which has not yet been signed into law by Gov. Jay Nixon. State Representative Sara Lampe, a Springfield Democrat who introduced the provision, said she had spoken with Dr. Heschel then and had hoped that her concerns had been allayed.
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