Henry Joel Cadbury (December 1, 1883 – October 7, 1974) was an American biblical scholar, Quaker historian, writer, and non-profit administrator.
[1] Forced out of his teaching position at Haverford for writing an anti-war letter to the Philadelphia Public Ledger, in 1918, he saw the experience as a milestone, leading him to larger service beyond his Orthodox Religious Society of Friends.
He was offered a position in the Divinity School at Harvard University, from which he had received his Ph.D., but he first rejected its teacher's oath for reasons of conscience, the Quaker insistence on telling the truth, and as a form of social activism.
In 1934, Cadbury encouraged Jews to engage Nazis with good will, according to The New York Times, which characterized his stance as, "Good will, not hate or reprisals, will end, or offset, the evils of Hitler government's persecution of Jews.
He also was the director of the Harvard Divinity School Library (1938–1954), and chairman (1928–1934; 1944–1960) of the American Friends Service Committee, which he had helped found in 1917.