The Chosen
Chaim Potok (1967)
“Two Brooklyn boys — one Hasidic, one Modern Orthodox — form a friendship across a religious divide, and discover that the most powerful kind of love sometimes looks like silence.”
At a Glance
In 1940s Brooklyn, a chance baseball game brings together Reuven Malter, a Modern Orthodox Jewish boy, and Danny Saunders, heir to a Hasidic dynasty and a near-genius reading Freud in secret. Despite their first meeting ending with Danny's line drive shattering Reuven's eyeglasses, they become inseparable. The novel follows their friendship over five years — through World War II, the Holocaust's revelation, the birth of Israel — as both boys struggle between the worlds their fathers built and the men they are becoming.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
The Chosen became a surprise bestseller and remained on the New York Times list for 39 weeks. It was the first American novel to portray Orthodox Jewish life — specifically Hasidic life — from inside, written for a general audience, without condescension or exoticism. It opened a conversation about religious identity in pluralist America that had no prior model in mainstream literary fiction.
Diction Profile
Formal but accessible — scholarly diction in argumentation, plain declarative prose in narration, Talmudic rhythms in religious speech
Low to moderate