This is the odyssey from boyhood to manhood for two Jewish boys amidst the conflict between generations and religious traditions.
For the first fifteen years of our lives, Danny and I lived within five blocks of each other and neither of us knew of the other’s existence.
Danny’s block was heavily populated by the followers of his father, Russian Hasidic Jews in somber garb, whose habits and frames of reference were born on the soil of the land they had abandoned. They drank tea from samovars, sipping it slowly through cubes of sugar held between their teeth; they ate the foods of their homeland, talked loudly, occasionally in Russian, most often in a Russian Yiddish, and were fierce in their loyalty to Danny’s father.
A block away lived another Hasidic sect, Jews from southern Poland, who walked the Brooklyn streets like specters, with their black hats, long black coats, black beards, and earlocks. These Jews had their own rabbi, their own dynastic ruler, who could trace his family’s position of rabbinic leadership back to the time of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the eighteenth-century founder of Hasidism, whom they all regarded as a God-invested personality.
About three or four such Hasidic sects populated the area in which Danny and I grew up, each with its own rabbi, its own little synagogue, its own customs, it own fierce loyalties. On a Shabbat or festival morning, the members of each sect could be seen walking to their respective synagogues, dressed in their particular garb, eager to pray with their particular rabbi and forget the tumult of the week and the hungry grabbing for money which they needed to feed their large families during the seemingly endless Depression. The sidewalks of Williamsburg were cracked squares of cement, the streets paved with asphalt thatsoftened in the stifling summers and broke apart into potholes in the bitter winters. Many of the houses were brownstones, set tightly together, none taller than three or four stories. In these houses lived Jews, Irish, Germans, and some Spanish Civil War refugee families that had fled the new Franco regime before the onset of the Second World War. Most of the stores were run by gentiles, but some were owned by Orthodox Jews, members of the Hasidic sects in the area. They could be seen behind their counters, wearing black skullcaps, full beards, and long earlocks, eking out their meager livelihoods and dreaming of Shabbat and festivals when they could close their stores and turn their attention to their prayers, their rabbi, their God.
Every Orthodox Jew sent his male children to a yeshiva, a Jewish parochial school, where they studied from eight or nine in the morning to four or five in the evening. On Fridays the students were let out at about one o’clock to prepare for the Shabbat. Jewish education was compulsory for the Orthodox, and because this was America and not Europe, English education was compulsory as well–so each student carried a double burden: Hebrew studies in the mornings and English studies in the afternoons. The test of intellectual excellence, however, had been reduced by tradition and unvoiced unanimity to a single area of study: Talmud. Virtuosity in Talmud was the achievement most sought after by every student of a yeshiva, for it was the automatic guarantee of a reputation for brilliance.
Danny attended the small yeshiva established by his father. Outside of the Williamsburg area, in Crown Heights, I attended the yeshiva in which my father taught. This latter yeshiva was somewhat looked down upon by the students of other Jewish parochial schools of Brooklyn: it offered more English subjects than the required minimum, and it taught its Jewish subjects in Hebrew rather than Yiddish. Most of the students were children of immigrant Jews who preferred to regard themselves as having been emancipated from the fenced-off ghetto mentality typical of the other Jewish parochial schools in Brooklyn.
Danny and I probably would never have met–or we would have met under altogether different circumstances–had it not been for America’s entry into the Second World War and the desire this bred on the part of some English teachers in the Jewish parochial schools to show the gentile world that yeshiva students were as physically fit, despite their long hours of study, as any other American student. They went about proving this by organizing the Jewish parochial schools in and around our area into competitive leagues, and once every two weeks the schools would compete against one another in a variety of sports. I became a member of my school’s varsity softball team.
On a Sunday afternoon in early June, the fifteen members of my team met with our gym instructor in the play yard of our school. It was a warm day, and the sun was bright on the asphalt floor of the yard. The gym instructor was a short, chunky man in his early thirties who taught in the mornings in a nearby public high school and supplemented his income by teaching in our yeshiva during the afternoons. He wore a white polo shirt, white pants, and white sweater, and from the awkward way the little black skullcap sat perched on his round, balding head, it was clearly apparent that he was not accustomed to wearing it with any sort of regularity. When he talked he frequently thumped his right fist into his left palm to emphasize a point. He walked on the balls of his feet, almost in imitation of a boxer’s ring stance, and he was fanatically addicted to professional baseball. He had nursed our softball team along for two years, and by a mixture of patience, luck, shrewd manipulations during some tight ball games, and hard, fist-thumping harangues calculated to shove us into a patriotic awareness of the importance of athletics and physical fitness for the war effort, he was able to mold our original team of fifteen awkward fumblers into the top team of our league. His name was Mr. Galanter, and all of us wondered why he was not off somewhere fighting in the war.
During my two years with the team, I had become quite adept at second base and had also developed a swift underhand pitch that would tempt a batter into a swing but would drop into a curve at the last moment and slide just below the flaying bat for a strike. Mr. Galanter always began a ball game by putting me at second base and would use me as a pitcher only in very tight moments, because, as he put it once, “My baseball philosophy is grounded on the defensive solidarity of the infield.”
That afternoon we were scheduled to play the winning team of another neighborhood league, a team with a reputation for wild, offensive slugging and poor fielding. Mr. Galanter said he was counting upon our infield to act as a solid defensive front. Throughout the warm-up period, with only our team in the yard, he kept thumping his right fist into his left palm and shouting at us to be a solid defensive front.
“No holes,” he shouted from near home plate. “No holes, you hear? Goldberg, what kind of solid defensive front is that? Close in. A battleship could get between you and Malter. That’s it. Schwartz, what are you doing, looking for paratroops? This is a ball game. The enemy’s on the ground. That throw was wide, Goldberg. Throw it like a sharpshooter. Give him the ball again. Throw it. Good. Like a sharpshooter. Very good. Keep the infield solid. No defensive holes in this war.”
We batted and threw the ball around, and it was warm and sunny, and there was the smooth, happy feeling of the summer soon to come, and the tight excitement of the ball game. We wanted very much to win, both for ourselves and, more especially, for Mr. Galanter, for we had all come to like his fist-thumping sincerity. To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time, a spawn of the potentially assimilationist English portion of the yeshiva day. But to the students of most of the parochial schools, an inter-league baseball victory had come to take on only a shade less significance than a top grade in Talmud, for it was an unquestioned mark of one’s Americanism, and to be counted a loyal American had become increasingly important to us during these last years of the war.
So Mr. Galanter stood near home plate, shouting instructions and words of encouragement, and we batted and tossed the ball around. I walked off the field for a moment to set up my eyeglasses for the game. I wore shell-rimmed glasses, and before every game I would bend the earpieces in so the glasses would stay tight on my head and not slip down the bridge of my nose when I began to sweat. I always waited until just before a game to bend down the earpieces, because, bent, they would cut into the skin over my ears, and I did not want to feel the pain a moment longer than I had to. The tops of my ears would be sore for days after every game, but better that, I thought, than the need to keep pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose or the possibility of having them fall off suddenly during an important play.
Davey Cantor, one of the boys who acted as a replacement if a first-stringer had to leave the game, was standing near the wire screen behind home plate. He was a short boy, with a round face, dark hair, owlish glasses, and a very Semitic nose. He watched me fix my glasses.
“You’re looking good out there, Reuven,” he told me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Everyone is looking real good.”
“It’ll be a good game.”
He stared at me through his glasses. “You think so?” he asked.
“Sure, why not?”
“You ever see them play, Reuven?”
“No.”
“They’re murderers.”
“Sure,” I said.
“No, really. They’re wild.”
“You saw them play?”
“Twice. They’re murderers.”
“Everyone plays to win, Davey.”
“They don’t only play to win. They play like it’s the first of the Ten Commandments.”
I laughed. “That yeshiva?” I said. “Oh, come on, Davey.”
From the Trade Paperback edition.
1. One of the central metaphors of The Chosen is combat. How does this metaphor advance the themes of the book?
2. Chaim Potok spoke often of his interest in a core-to-core culture confrontation in his books. What does this mean in The Chosen? What are the essential differences between the Hasidic and the Orthodox Jews?
3. Reb Saunders uses silence as a way of instructing and changing Danny. Why? What causes him to finally communicate with his son?
4. When Danny begins to read widely, what writer/thinker/innovator and what methodology lead him to the path he finally chooses?
5. Reb Saunders's Hasidic sect is hostile at first to the establishment of the State of Israel. What causes Reb to change his mind?
6. David Malter and Reb Saunders have different opinions about the war in Europe and the fact that 6 million Jews died in death camps. Can you explain how and why they differ?
7. Some people are puzzled by the title. What do you think The Chosen means?
Bookaholic_chick
Posted September 7, 2009
I Also Recommend:
This is by far one of my favorite books of all time. I love anything written by Chaim Potok, but this book is indeed quite special. The author gives compelling insight into the unique differences between various sects of Judaism, as well as dealing with the delicate issues of father and son relationships, self acceptance, forgiveness and courage. I highly recommend this book!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 2, 2007
A beautiful story set in an Orthodox Jewish area of Brooklyn, telling the story of two teenage boys who come from very similar yet vastly different Orthodox backgrounds. The book is full of grace
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 10, 2007
If you like real life novels then you¿ll like The Chosen because this book is amazing. This book will show a real life situation and a way to handle this kind of situation. This book will not only teach you but show you how Danny and Reuven ,protagonist, handled this problem with their parents and with other. This book is fabulous when you don¿t know what o do in lifetime crisis and social problems in that surround you everyday. The Chosen is also a great, contemplative, outstanding piece of reading that will explain and show how the Jewish culture is about. Learning about Jews is reverent because they believe a certain way and even act a different way, that fits what they strongly believe in. If you would love to comprehend about Jewish culture and learn more about their background and experiences of a Jew, you should read The Chosen because is every detailed. This book¿s summary would mainly be about two teenagers and their parents. These two teenagers Reuven and Danny don¿t just meet as many of met. Reuven and Danny met by a accident that occurred to Reuven Malter during a baseball game. From there on, Reuven and Danny became best friends, while both attending same college and becoming classmates. But the story doesn¿t end there, while their friendship is developing everyday more and more, Reuven and Danny¿s father don¿t agree with each other so this book explains about how Reuven and Danny started to have trouble with each other and with there parents.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 31, 2009
This book was forced on me by my summer reading list for English class, and I was pleasantly surprised, so much so that I have read it more than once. Two boys who practically hate each other at first become friends and have to overcome the drastic differences between their families. While they are both Jewish, there are more differences and prejudices than I thought possible. This book follows the boys from mid-teens through college. Reuven (the narrator) lives with his father (his mother died when he was much younger) while Danny (w/ father, mother, and two siblings) copes with his father expecting him to follow in the line of rabbis that all the oldest men of their family have been. Danny wants to be a psychologist, which is so not cool if you are an Hasidic Jew. Reuven is the opposite; his loving father would like him to become a mathematician or scholar, but Reuven wants to become a rabbi. The fathers are very different in that one forces while the other is content that his son has thought through his choice. It is wonderful to see two boys that are actually friends (in that they talk about the important things as well as the silly) and how they stand by each other.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 7, 2007
I have read this book through many times. Everytime that I read, I find myself enjoying it more and more. This book is a great teacher about friendship, parents and dealing with hardships that come in your life. Reuven, the main character, is immersed in a world of pain and hardship. He goes through many things in the book that people can relate to. This book taught me a lot about how to deal with those things that come up, and how others deal with them. On the otherside, this book was a bit confusing. It discussed Jewish customs that I know nothing about. I could not relate to the Jewish side of the book at all. Overall, this book was very good. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 2, 2007
I love this book and agree with most of the positive reviews here. When I read the first few pages, I had VERY high doubts. THANK GOD I KEPT READING. It's so insightful and inspiring, and just...well, like the book says at times...there's so much depth--if I even try to explain, I'll butcher it so I'll leave it at that. I now know there's a sequel, and I'm actually a bit apprehensive about reading it--only because this book is so whole, that a second part seems unnecessary to me. Ah well. I can somewhat understand how some people found it disappointing though...I s'pose it wouldn't hurt to be interested in history to read it, but there's so much more BEYOND that. It's the reader's choice.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 10, 2007
This novel ¿The Chosen¿ by Chaim Potok is by far the best book I have ever read. I don¿t read unless I¿m forced but when I read the chosen I couldn¿t let go of the book I had to know what happened next. This story is about two Jewish boys one named Rueven Malter and the other named Danny Saunders. Both of them are having problems getting to know their own father. This is all happening during World War II. The setting is Bronx, New York. So if you like funny, sad, and suspenseful books then I strongly recommend ¿The Chosen.¿
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 11, 2007
I read the Chosen in my English 2 Honors class in high school. Every single student who read it before me told me the book was horrible and I would hate it. I went into it expecting it to be incredibly boring and a complete waste of time. I was surprised to find how wrong everyone else was! The Chosen was very good, although, I must warn future readers, there's a lecture by Reb Saunders (a rabbi) in the second part that's absolutely killer to get through. It drags on for pages and pages, but if you can trudge through that, it's smooth sailing! Highly recommended to all ages, although if you're not interested in history this book is not for you.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 2, 2006
I am not much of a reader and I can honestly say I did not enjoy this book. The book seemed to move really slowly. I found myself reading and getting lost not knowing what I had read. The book did have good point. It shows that you should be yourself and do what you want in life. The book shows good conflicts between friends growing up. One major conflict of the book is when Reuven is injured in a baseball game and is almost blinded. This allows him to see the importance of his eyesight. This causes tension between him and Danny. (Danny being the one who hit the ball.) A quote that stood out to me was ¿We are commanded to study His Torah! We are commanded to sit in the light of the Presence! It is for this that we were created! . . . Not the world, but the people of Israel!¿ Reb Saunders explaining how he feels about Jews being the chosen people said this quote. I disliked this book and feel that its just not my type of book.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 15, 2010
Chaim Potok's novel The Chosen was first published in 1967, by Fawcett Columbine Book Company, and has been a capturing read to anyone who picks up this masterpiece. A fictional story, placed in the streets of Brooklyn, New York, of two teenagers living separate lives, accidently crossing paths to create a friendship that both will cherish forever. Set in a small community with two diverse neighborhoods - Hebrew-Jewish and Russian Hassidic Jews. Reuven Malter, the narrator in this story, is a sixteen-year-old boy who is passionate about his Jewish heritage and is pushed to become a mathematician or scientist by his father who is the rabbi of his community. Danny Saunders, a sixteen year old boy who loves math and science is expected by his father, who is the strict rabbi of the Hassidic Jews and by others around him to become the next leader of the 'tribe.' The two teenagers meet in a game of baseball where Danny hits a baseball into Reuven's eye and is hospitalized. Reuven over time begins to forgive Danny and the two become very close friends. The mood changes from anger to companionship which is the main theme throughout the novel. In this time setting the two experience what is occurring during WWII where religion is the most important article that both depend on. What made this piece very special was how it gave very patent descriptions on the different sects of Judaism. Compared to other works of its time, The Chosen displays how strong human relations are and how others can forgive each other. I enjoyed this book so much through its various emotional features and how it reveals the potential of human kindness and loyalty to others. Potok captures the very essence of forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance of others through his novel.
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Posted September 1, 2010
From the moment I picked this book up, I could not put it down. It captivated me with an action packed, fast paced beginning, that continued to the very end. However, The Chosen did not fail to include any of the little details, or descriptions that truly turn text into a picture in the readers mind. Not one point was missed, and not once did I find myself questioning what was happening. Mostly, I enjoyed how in depth this book was. I found myself delving deep into my mind to comprehend what I found to be the extremely interesting, and touching points in this book. The Chosen describes the loss of friends, loved ones, and bluntly shows how cruel life can be, bringing the reader into a world of reality. Having said that, the sad moments are very well contradicted by touching moments of love, friendship, and compassion. Some points of happiness, and the way lives are turned around, can bring a person to the brink of tears. The way this story was written, from the silent rabbi father, to the genius son, can intrigue anyone into never putting the book down until it ends. After reading, as well, there are also some valuable lessons to be learned. Afterwards, you are likely to take away lessons that teach the value of love, parenting, friendship, and much, much, more. Grab this book off the shelf of your library, and I promise you will not be disappointed.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Silvermoss
Posted May 6, 2010
I would most definitely recommend this book to someone else because it's just that type of book. When I first bought this book, it was for my English class, but after I read it, I don't regret buying it. I really like this story of two boys from different worlds, and how they became friends. This book has showed me friendships, how it can survive even the worst of it, but mainly about silence. I never really thought about silence, how it can affect someone's life, until I've read this book. I also love how Chaim Potok put each boy into their own obstacles, and how they overcame it. The relationships with other characters also, and ended the story with just the right ending to the story. I can't wait to read the next one. ^^ And I hope you will give this book a try, if you're one of those type of people who likes to read fiction, but not about magic and stuff, but about common things in our life, this is the perfect book to read. Hope it helped! :)
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Posted August 17, 2009
Very moving and real storyline; well written; excellent learning tool about relationships in family and friends.
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Posted September 6, 2008
this book follows the freinship of two jewish teenage boys, one very orthodox and the other not so much. It is neat to see how they learn and how much you learn yourself while reading this book. I learned a lot of interesting things about jewish costums and the jewish religion itself. It is a wonderful store of knowledge and an exalent read with a good storyline. I love reading this book and feel like i learn something knew everytime. I would recomend this book to anyone and everyone. A definite classic!
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Posted September 10, 2007
If you like helping a friend, overcoming big problems, and achieving what you want to do in life then you will like The Chosen because this book will impress you a lot. This book will help people learn how to overcome great difficulties. The characters in this book all have problems with there dads and there religion and at the end they become successful and achieve what they bereave in the most. This book will make sure they stay positive and not negative in hard times. The setting in this book mainly takes place in the Jewish part of New York. In that place there are the orthodox and the normal Jews. The setting focuses in the Jewish part of New York only, but there will be a few times the setting does change but not too many. In my opinion the writer makes it less complicated by focusing on the plot more then the setting changes, making the book easier to understand. The plot in this book focuses on how Reuven entered Danny Saunders¿ life and he had to help him become free from his dad, and get him what he wants. In my opinion the plot gets slow and boring towards the middle, but at the last few pages it gets interesting. I will not recommend this book to anyone who likes fast paced plots that are not repetitive as this book¿s plot is the exact opposite. The story contains three main characters, Danny Saunders, Reuven, and Rev Saunders, who is Danny¿s dad. Reuven is trying to make his friend free from the control of his dad. But Danny¿s dad is a very powerful rabbi in the Jewish community, making Reuven have no support at all. In my opinion the characters are the people that dot make this story boring and help out in the plot.
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Posted September 10, 2007
I chose The Chosen by Chaim Potok over the summer. The Chosen talks about things that happen in the past but we don¿t know if it is true or not that¿s why the book is realistic fiction. This story takes place in Brooklyn, New York during the World War II. It¿s also appropriate for ages 13 and older because it talks about history, two friends who have a big differences between each other, and it has 284 pages. There are two Jewish boys age of 15 years old named Reuven and Danny. Danny has a beard and ear locks and talks mainly of a language called Yiddish. Danny¿s tradition is to wear formal clothes everyday, study Talmud, and never shave or cut off neither the beard nor ear locks. Reuven speaks mainly English and dresses casually. Reuven and Danny meet each other at a baseball game. When Reuven first sees Danny he starts hating him. Reuven is later taken to a hospital after the ball hits his eye. When Reuven was in the hospital Danny goes and visits him and they become friends. After Reuven gets out the hospital, he goes and visits Danny¿s family. Reuven realizes that Danny and his family barely communicate with each other only with studying. One day Reuven¿s dad had a rally and he was to make a speech but when Danny¿s father realizes what the speech was about he gets mad and tells Danny to never speak to Reuven. When the Jewish state was being established Danny and Reuven were still not talking to each other and their friendship almost got broken up. Reb Suanders, Danny¿s dad, later forgets about the Jewish state and Danny and Reuven were able to talk to each other again. Danny later needs Reuven¿s help to tell Reb Saunders that he doesn¿t want to talk his place in being a rabbi. The conflict between Reuven and Danny is that they have differences that make their life difficult. My connection with the book is when Danny¿s father plans out his life is the same thing that my parents are doing. If you are a kind of person who likes books with big conflicts then you will like The Chosen because it talks about two friends trying to stick together. The reason I chose this book is because of the history in it and how people¿s lives have change since than.
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Posted September 10, 2007
If you like ¿love, compassion, and friendship¿ then you will like this book The Chosen. This book is basically about two boys that you would think would never become friends in the beginning but end up being the best of friends. Its takes place around World War II and D- day. As this book goes on you will also see a big bond between Revuen and his friend Danny and the rest of the family and friends. In the beginning to this was so boring and I kept falling asleep, then has it went on it a little bit better but I still didn¿t enjoy this book all that much. It was just too slow and it wasn¿t working out for me. But I hope you enjoy the book and if you do well you must really love books.
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Posted September 10, 2007
The Chosen Chaim Potok is the author behind the brilliant story of The Chosen. Chaim Potok writes about the life of two boys and their struggles. The book is about a boy named Reuven who is Jewish and how he is living his life in Brooklyn during World War II. This book shows the struggles of two friends and how religion is affecting them from being friends. If you like books that talk about friendship and how something is getting in the way of doing then you would love to read The Chosen. The book is about how Reuven meets Danny after getting hit by a baseball and how they become best friends. Reuven soon finds out that Danny¿s father who is a rabbi is raising Danny in silence. The only thing that Danny and his father talk about is about religion and nothing more because his father is a rabbi at a synagogue. When Danny¿s father dies Danny is suppose to become the new rabbi, but Danny does not want to be a rabbi, instead he wants to be a physiologist and doesn¿t know how to tell his father. In order to know what happens you must know read The Chosen.
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Posted September 10, 2007
The Chosen If you like reading about drama, friendship and school issues, then you will like The Chosen because the author puts a lot of detail into the issues that he¿s writing about. The setting of this book is a very quiet and only a little dramatic. Rueven doesn¿t really worry about what happens in his high school life. While reading The Chosen I noticed that the way the author describes the issues is not helpful for me when it comes to understanding. It didn¿t make me feel like I was in the story either. Maybe this was also because the story was a little challenging to me. Some people who like big texts and confusing books then this would be the perfect book. By understanding and imagining that the characters were real helped me think about the issues and dilemmas that Rueven had to go through. The only times that I really felt like I was in the story was when Rueven had problems with his best friend, Danny. That¿s when the author really put detail into the arguments. Liking or disliking the characters in the story is very important because even if you think you don¿t understand the character they pop-up surprises for you during the book.
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Posted September 10, 2007
The Chosen by Chaim Potok is a very emotional book. This book is about two Jewish teenagers that live in Bronx, New York and the time setting is during the World War II. This book had some sad parts in it for example when one of the teenagers dad goes to the hospital and is very sick. But there are some jovial times also when the two enemies meet and they find that they become to be best friends after all the trouble. This book is a fiction book which means that it¿s not a true story but, it falls under the category of Realistic Fiction. I did not like the story because there where to many emotional parts in this book and I like action, and horror themes, but if you like drama this is the right book for you. The only connection that I had with this story was that when I was at my old school in 8th grade I was scared to be the friend of this big guy because I thought that he was going to bully me. But after all when I got to know him he was the one who was getting bulled. This is what I thought of the book The Chosen by Chaim Potok.
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Overview