Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Fawcett Crest (Ballantine Books)
Pages
271
Description
Chaim Potok's The Chosen depicting the Jewish experience in America is examined with a brief biographical sketch to provide insight into the author's life.
Description
It is the now-classic story of two fathers and two sons and the pressures on all of them to pursue the religion they share in the way that is best suited to each. And as the boys grow into young men, they discover in the other a lost spiritual brother, and a link to an unexplored world that neither had ever considered before. In effect, they exchange places, and find the peace that neither will ever retreat from again. . . .
It’s the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they’ve never met, not until the day an accident during a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys—one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe, the other at ease with secular America—are drawn into one another’s worlds despite one father’s strong opposition.
Set against the backdrop of WWII and the creation of the state of Israel, The Chosen is a poignant novel about transformation and tradition, growing up and growing wise, and finding yourself—even if that might mean leaving your community.
It’s the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they’ve never met, not until the day an accident during a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys—one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe, the other at ease with secular America—are drawn into one another’s worlds despite one father’s strong opposition.
Set against the backdrop of WWII and the creation of the state of Israel, The Chosen is a poignant novel about transformation and tradition, growing up and growing wise, and finding yourself—even if that might mean leaving your community.
Collection
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1967
Physical description
271 p.; 6.9 inches
ISBN
0449213447 / 9780449213445
Similar in this library
Lexile
900L
User reviews
LibraryThing member m.belljackson
A story of baseball and hate evolves into a classic of love and friendship between two young Jewish men in Brooklyn.
The contrasts between Orthodox and Hasidic Judaism are finely drawn, with the horror of The Holocaust ultimately drawing them close.
The contrasts between Orthodox and Hasidic Judaism are finely drawn, with the horror of The Holocaust ultimately drawing them close.
LibraryThing member cindywho
This was recommended by a friend - she does like intense books. What I liked about it was the peek into the world of orthodox Jews in the 1940s through the story of friendship between two boys and the story of their relationships with their fathers. It was also a history lesson about the birth of
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Israel. It's heavy and emotional, perhaps a little over the top for me. It's also personally hard to appreciate a story where the women are all but invisible. Show Less
LibraryThing member OccassionalRead
Both my son and daughter were given this book upon their bar and bat mitzvahs. I can see why. In the beginning, the book's main protagonists are two 15-year-old boys, and you witness them finish high school and college. The language is also simple and straight forward; one might even guess this
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falls in the Young Adult Fiction category, although in the late 1960s, when this book was written, I am not sure that category existed. Most important, the book deals with themes of Judaism, family, friendship, faith, character, pain, loss, and spirituality, that are important. And our religious institution is in Brooklyn, where Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter both live just blocks from one another, at the tail end of World II. To me, this book is principally about how to be a Jew in the modern world. The novel deals with the improbable friendship between Danny, a genius Hasidic Jew who is the son of the local Rebbe and destined to take over the community, and Reuven, an Orthodox but more secular Jew, also whip-smart, whose father is also a Rabbi. The two children forge a strong friendship, despite their differences. I found the book really fascinating. You learn a bit about the origins of Hasidism and Potok really evokes a community, its dusty Yeshiva, the old men gathering on the sidewalk or taking part in a kiddush, and little kids playing on the street, a rabbinical college, that seem to be little different today then they were 75 years ago. Reuven and Danny's fathers respect one another but they represent two different paths for Jewish survival in the modern world. Danny's final words to Reuven's dad, that he will raise his child as he himself was raised, "If I can't find another way" demonstrates the flexibility Jews and other faith communities require in confronting modernity. Show Less
Call number
FIC J Pot