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Chaim Potok (1929-2002) - original name Herman Harold Potok | |
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Rabbi and author whose novels depict the life and culture of Orthodox Jews. Potok's works in the 1980s have been autobiographical. Throughout his publishing career Potok has written scholarly and popular articles and reviews. Central theme in Potok's novels is the tensions between Judaism and the values and culture of modern society. '"Reuven, as you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things, as you call them - 'ordinary things' is a better expression. That is the way the world is."' (from The Chosen, 1967) Herman Harold Potok was born in New York City in Bronx as the eldest son of Jewish immigrants from Poland. Following traditions, Potok's parents also gave him a Hebrew name, Chaim Tvzi (Chaim means "life" or "alive"). His father, Benjamin Max Potok, was a jeweler and watchmaker. As a child Potok received primary education in Jewish schools where he studied required secular subjects but also the Talmud, the center of the curriculum. Potok's upbringing, Orthodox if not quite Hasidic, has been inspiration for several of his novels, which are set in Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx. When drawing and painting was considered in the Orthodox community a violation of the Second Commandment and a waste of time, Potok focused on writing. He read works by James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, and Evelyn Waugh, whose novel Brideshead Revisited (1945) impressed him deeply. After education at the Talmudic Academy High School of Yeshiva University in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, Potok received his M.A. in Hebrew literature. At the age of 25 he was ordained a Conservative rabbi. Between the years 1955 and 1957 he was a chaplain with the US Army, more than fifteen months of his service being in Korea with a front-line medical battalion and an engineering combat battalion. This experience provided material for Potok's novels THE BOOK OF LIGHTS (1981) and I AM THE CLAY (1992). From 1957 to 1959 Potok taught at the University of Judaism. In 1958 he married Adena Sarah Mosevitzsky, a psychiatric social worker. Their first child, Rosa, was born in 1962. Next year Potok took his family to Israel for a year. In 1964 Potok became the managing editor of the magazine Conservative Judaism. He was appointed in 1965 editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia and then chairman of its publication committee. From 1974 he worker as a special projects editor. Potok received in 1965 his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, with dissertation on 'The Rationalism and Skepticism of Solomon Maimon'. In 1983 he was visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1985 Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. Potok died on July 23, in Merion, Pennsylvania. He had been ill with cancer for some time. '"How the world drinks our blood," Reb Saunders said. "How the world makes us suffer. It is the will of God. We must accept the will of God." He was silent for a long moment. Then he raised his eyes and said softly, "Master of the Universe, how do you permit such a thing to happen?"' (from The Chosen) As a novelist Potok made his debut with THE CHOSEN (1967), a story about rivalry and friendship between a progressive Orthodox Jewish scholar and a young Hasid - Reuven Malther, the secular Jew, and Danny Saunders, from a Hasidic family. Danny's father is a tzaddik (Hebrew for "righteous one"), a spiritual leader of a Hasidic community. He expects that Danny, who is the elder son, succeeds him. The book became a best-seller, which was a surprise for the author. "I thought 500 people might be interested in reading this story about two Jewish kids," Potok said. The novel was on The New York Times best-seller list for more than six months and was nominated for a National Book Award. Two years later published THE PROMISE (1969) follows the same characters. Danny's secular studies and faith with Freudian psychology has lured him away from the faith of his father. The book was a Literary Guild Choise in America and achieved a first printing of 100 000 copies. The Chosen was filmed in 1981, starring Rod Steiger, and in later had a brief run as a Broadway musical. MY NAME IS ASHER LEV (1972) is the story of a young artist, whose choice of career is not approved by his family. However, he produces two great crucifixions, ultimate symbols of suffering, but depicting his own mother on the cross. "My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in newspapers and magazines, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties, the notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn Crucifixion." This blasphemy leads to his being sent into exile in Paris by his father's sect. Asher's father is a fundamentalist Jew, and describing the roots of his art, Asher says: "I call that ambiguity. Riddles, puzzles, double meanings, lost possibilities, the dark side to the light, the light side to darkness, different perspectives on the same things. Nothing in this whole world has only one side to it. Everything is like a kaleidoscope. That's what I'm trying to capture in my art. That's what I mean by ambiguity." His father answers: "No one is a kaleidoscope, Asher. God is not a kaleidoscope. God is not ambiguous. Our faith in Him is not ambiguous. From ambiguity I would not derive the strength to do all the things I must do. Ambiguity is darkness. Certainty is light. Darkness is the world of the Other Side." The sequel, THE GIFT OF ASHER LEV, appeared in 1990. Lev is now a world-renowned author living in Paris. He is called back to Brooklyn, and once again forced to make a choice between the worldly and the sacred. THE GATES OF NOVEMBER (1996) is a family chronicle, but depicting the real-life family of Russian Jews. The story of Solomon and Volodya Slepak, a father and son, is simultaneously the story of Soviet Jewry and the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. Autobiographical IN THE BEGINNING (1975), about modern criticism of the Bible and tradition, THE BOOK OF LIGHTS (1981), and DAVITA'S HARP (1985) explored the conflict between religious and secular interest. "And for as long as I am able to remember, a door harp hung on our floor.... We mounted the harp on the back of the front door and when we opened or closed the door the balls struck the wires and we would hear ting tang tong tung ting tang - the gentlest and sweetest of tones." The narrator is Davita Chandal, who grows up in New York in the 1930s and 1940s, and finds the Jewish faith and her independence. Among Potok's non-fiction works is CHAIM POTOK'S HISTORY OF THE JEWS (1978), in which the author combines scholarship with dramatic narrative. ZEBRA AND OTHER STORIES (1998), a collection of short stories, was written for young adults. One of the characters notes, "I think losing your soul is when you can't tell a story about something that has happened to you." Potok has written what he has experienced in life, but also studied philosophical questions about suffering, the meaning of the universe, and the existence of evil. "I would prefer to say that the universe is meaningful, with pockets of apparent meaninglessness, than to say it is meaningless with pockets of apparent meaningfulness. In other words I have questions either way." (Potok in Christianity Today, September 8, 1978) For further reading: Conversations With Chaim Potok, ed. by Daniel Walden (2001); Chaim Potok: A Critical Companion by Sanford V. Sternlicht (2000); St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers, ed. by Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast (1999); Chaim Potok by Edward A. Abramson (1986); Studies in American Jewish Literature, ed. by Daniel Walden (1985) - See also: Isaac Bashevis Singer, whose works are almost exclusively written in Yiddish. Saul Bellow, fluent in Yiddish, one of the most important Jewish-American writers after WW II. Selected works:
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