Waskow received a bachelor's degree from The Johns Hopkins University in 1954 and a Ph.D. in American history from University of Wisconsin—Madison. He worked from 1959 to 1961 as legislative assistant to Congressman Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin. He was a Senior Fellow at the Peace Research Institute from 1961 through 1963. He joined Richard Barnet and Marcus Raskin and helped to found the Institute for Policy Studies in 1963, and he served as Resident Fellow until 1977.

In 1968 Waskow was elected an alternate delegate from the District of Columbia to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His delegation was pledged to support Robert Kennedy, and after Kennedy's assassination Waskow proposed and the delegation agreed to nominate Reverend Channing Phillips, chair of the delegation, for President ... the first Black person so nominated at a major party convention.

Waskow was a contributing editor to the leftist Ramparts magazine, which published his "Freedom Seder" in 1969. The "Freedom Seder" was the first widely published Passover Haggadah that intertwined the archetypal liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Ancient Egypt with more modern liberation struggles such as the Civil Rights Movement and the women's movement.

Through the 1960s, Waskow was active in writing, speaking, electoral politics, and nonviolent action against the Vietnam War. Since 1963, he participated in sit-ins and teach-ins, and was arrested many times for protests against racial segregation, the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union's oppression of Jews, South African apartheid, and the Iraq war.

Since 1969, Waskow has taken a leadership role in the Jewish Renewal movement. In 1971, he helped found the Fabrangen Havurah in Washington, DC. The torah discussions at Fabrangen inspired Waskow's God-Wrestling (NY: Schocken, 1978).

He founded The Shalom Center in 1983 and serves as its director. In its inception the Shalom Center primarily confronted the threat of nuclear war from a Jewish perspective, emphasizing the story of Noah and the imperative to save the world from "a flood of fire". As the Cold War abated, the Shalom Center turned its focus toward ecology and human rights issues. The chief concerns of The Shalom Center are:

• The Iraq War and related issues, including the growing use of torture by the United States and unchecked presidential power;
• American addiction to over-use of oil and the danger it poses to the planet through global warming;
• The creation of deeper connections among Jews, Christians, and Muslims;
• An interfaith effort to identify and encourage the use and marketing of "Sacred Foods";
• Peace in the Middle East;
• Lesbian and gay rights, especially in marriage and other sacred contexts;
• The rights of immigrants.

From 1982 to 1989, Waskow was a member of the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where he taught courses on contemporary theology and practical rabbinics. He has also taught in the religion departments of Swarthmore College, Temple University, Drew University, and Vassar College.

In 1993, Waskow co-founded Alliance for Jewish Renewal. Between 1993 and 2005, he performed research, wrote, and spoke on behalf of ALEPH.

Waskow was ordained a rabbi in 1995 by a beth din (rabbinical court) made up of a rabbi with Hasidic lineage, a Conservative rabbi, a Reform rabbi, and a feminist theologian.

Waskow's best-known books include Godwrestling (1978), Seasons of Our Joy (1982), Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life (1995), and Godwrestling ... Round 2: Ancient Wisdom, Future Paths (1996).

Some of Waskow's positions on religious and political issues, and his interpretations of Jewish traditions, have drawn criticism from more conservative quarters of the Jewish community and from some parts of the American Left.

Pointing to the implications of the Jubilee year for the peaceful and meditative redistribution of land, Waskow has argued that prophetic Judaism contains elements of social vision that have reappeared in some aspects of Marxism and some aspects of Buddhism Mail.Liberal-Judaism Volume 8 Number 39.

Waskow has been a strong critic of Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza. He is opposed to the Second Iraq War, citing what he describes as Jewish religious grounds. He has supported the positions of Cindy Sheehan. Waskow has said he has found no evidence of Sheehan making anti-Israel statements attributed to her .

Waskow has supported full rights and full presence of gay and lesbian persons in the Jewish community and in American life, including supporting the right to same-sex Jewish and civil marriage.

Since his first visit to Israel (and at the same time to the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem) in 1969, he has supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has strongly condemned such actions by some Palestinians as terrorist attacks on Israel and such acts of the Israeli government as the invasions of Lebanon in 1982 and 2006. He became one of the founding members of Rabbis for Human Rights/North America and served on its board and steering committee. When some parts of the US antiwar movement demonized Israel, he publicly criticized their behavior and The Shalom Center sponsored alternative actions that strongly criticized the Iraq war while affirming the legitimacy of Israel and the importance of its achieving peace with a Palestinian state.

Though a critic of the environmental policies of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Waskow has disagreed with claims that Chávez is anti-Semitic, pointing out that his critical comments on ". . .some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ, descendants of those who threw Bolívar out of here . . .took the world's riches for themselves. . ." were referring not to the Jews but to the heirs of the Roman Empire that crucified Jesus and of the Spanish empire that attacked Bolivar -- that is, to the US empire of today .

In 1996, Waskow was named by the United Nations a “Wisdom Keeper” among forty religious and intellectual leaders who met in connection with the Habitat II conference in Istanbul. He was presented the Abraham Joshua Heschel Award by the Jewish Peace Fellowship and in 2005 was named by the Forward newspaper one of the "Forward Fifty" leaders of American Jewry. In 2007, Newsweek named him one of the fifty most influential American rabbis. In that year also, the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement of Philadelphia presented him its Rev. Richard Fernandez Religious Leadership Award, and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation presented him its Peace and Justice Award.

Waskow has taught as a Visiting Professor in the religion departments of Swarthmore College (1982-83, on the thought of Martin Buber and on the Book of Genesis and its rabbinic and modern interpretations); Temple University (1975-76 on contemporary Jewish theology and 1985-86, on liberation theologies in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam); Drew University (1997-1998, on the ecological outlooks of ancient, rabbinic, and contemporary Judaism and on the synthesis of mysticism, feminism, and social action in the theology and practice of Jewish renewal); Vassar College (1999 on Jewish Renewal and Feminist Judaism); and from 1982 to 1989 on the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (contemporary theology and practical rabbinics).