Book Review - The Chosen, Chaim Potok

This last month's book club selection was "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok, a book about Hasidic Jews in NYC during the early 1940's. It is one of those High School books that is given the students in the US, I had never heard of it before it was picked so I had no prior knowledge of the story or it's contents. The story starts at a baseball game, where two boys meet and the story follows them from their mid teens until they graduate from college. Our protagonists are Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders, they are both eldest children, they are both Jews, they are neighbors and they have very particular relationships with their fathers. Danny's father, Rev Saunders is a Hasidic rabbi that has inherited his position from his father and has led his flock from Russia to the United States. Danny's father is an intellectual who teaches and writes, he is an orthodox Jew and the story never really goes very deeply into why he came to the U.S. or when. Since each family is of a different type of Jewish faith, their lives do not intersect even if they are neighbors until Danny and Reuven meet at a baseball game. It is hard to do a summary of the plot without giving the story away, but here are some if the great insights this book provides:

• Explains how the Talmud is studied
• Explains where and why the Hasidic movement was born
• Illuminates the different Jewish positions and feelings regarding the founding of the State of Israel

I would definitely recommend the book it is an easy read, and if you do not know about any of the subjects mentioned above, then you get to know a little more so it is definitely something interesting one can use years later at dinner conversations and intellectual parties, but I do have to warn you that the book is book of ideas. What do I mean you ask ? Well the book uses its main 4 characters to explore different positions, the very orthodox, very traditional Hasidic point view, a more modern orthodox point of view, and through the two boys, they author covers the Americanization of the children of this very tight communities.

Happy reading !