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    A Study Guide for Chaim Potok's The Chosen
    A Study Guide for Chaim Potok's The Chosen
    A Study Guide for Chaim Potok's The Chosen
    Ebook45 pages21 minutes

    A Study Guide for Chaim Potok's The Chosen

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Chaim Potok's "The Chosen," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 14, 2015
    ISBN9781535835787
    A Study Guide for Chaim Potok's The Chosen

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Chaim Potok's The Chosen - Gale

      3

      The Chosen

      Chaim Potok

      1967

      Introduction

      While Chaim Potok's central characters in The Chosen struggle between the spiritual obligations of Orthodox Judaism and secular American life, they also reflect universal conflicts between fathers and sons. The novel, Potok's first, was published in 1967 and enjoyed a wide readership, as well as critical acclaim. Potok received the Edward Lewis Wallant Award and a nomination for the National Book Award for The Chosen. The novel focuses on its two main characters, Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter, and covers their high school and college years, the period in their lives when they struggle for self-realization. Both are sons of religious fathers, but while Reuven's is orthodox and secularized, Danny's father is the head of an ultraorthodox and mystical sect of Jews called Hasids. Rabbi Isaac Saunders, Danny's father, fully expects Danny to inherit his role as the spiritual leader of his congregation, but Danny is more interested in modern psychology. Reuven's father, David Malter, is a Hebrew scholar. The story begins with a baseball game between Reuven's and Danny's school teams. They both attend rival yeshivas, Jewish religious schools. Reuven and his classmates wear ordinary clothes and are coached by a gym teacher who is an avid baseball fan. Danny's team is coached by a religious Hasid who wears the black garments, skull cap, and earlocks traditional to his sect. Danny's team is not expected to win, but they have the reputation of being fierce. They do win the game and in the process, Danny breaks Reuven's glasses and sends him to the hospital with glass in his eye. After an initial meeting in the hospital when Danny tries to apologize for the injury, the two boys become friends. The novel explores the relationship each boy has with his own father and the relationship each develops with the other boy's father.

      Author Biography

      Two life experiences have been major influences on the work of Chaim Potok. They are the world of Orthodox Judaism in which he was raised and the larger world he experienced when he served as an army chaplain during the Korean War. His war experience made him realize that growing up in a strict Jewish community had limited his aspirations to become a writer. Artistic endeavors were not considered the proper pursuit for Jewish boys. Instead, they were expected to study the Talmud, the combined body of writings on Jewish traditions.

      Potok was born on February 17,1929, and was raised in the Bronx, New York. His parents, Benjamin Max and Mollie, had fled persecution in their native Poland. As a young boy, Potok studied in a parochial Jewish school, called a yeshiva. While his early training was in the Hasidic tradition (a sect originating in eighteenth-century Poland that emerged as a reaction to growing Jewish

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