Potok, Chaim 1929–2002

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Potok, Chaim 1929–2002

PERSONAL: Born Herman Harold Potok, February 17, 1929, in New York, NY; died of brain cancer, July 23, 2002, in Merion, PA; changed given name to Chaim, pronounced "Hah-yim"; son of Benjamin Max (in business) and Mollie (Friedman) Potok; married Adena Sarah Mosevitzky, June 8, 1958; children: Rena, Naama, Akiva. Education: Yeshiva University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1950; Jewish Theological Seminary, M.H. L., 1954; University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D., 1965. Hobbies and other interests: Oil painting, photography.

CAREER: Writer. Ordained rabbi (Conservative). Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, NY, national director, Leaders Training Fellowship, 1954–55; Camp Ramah, Ojai, CA, director, 1957–59; University of Judaism, Los Angeles, CA, instructor, 1957–59; Har Zion Temple, Philadelphia, PA, scholar-in-residence, 1959–63; Jewish Theological Seminary, member of faculty of Teachers' Institute, 1963–64; Conservative Judaism, New York, NY, managing editor, 1964–65; Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, PA, editor-in-chief, 1965–74, special projects editor, beginning 1974. Visiting professor, University of Pennsylvania, 1983, 1992–98, Bryn Mawr College, 1985, and Johns Hopkins University, 1995–98. Military service: Served as U.S. chaplain in Korea, 1956–57.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Dramatists Guild, Authors League of America, Rabbinical Assembly, PEN, Artists Equity.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and National Book Award nomination, both for The Chosen; Athenaeum Award for The Promise; Jewish National Book Award, 1997, for The Gift of Asher Lev; National Foundation for Jewish Culture Achievement Award; O. Henry Award, 1999, for "Moon."

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

The Chosen (also see below), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1967, with introduction by Daniel Walden, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2003.

The Promise (sequel to The Chosen), Knopf (New York, NY), 1969.

My Name Is Asher Lev, Knopf (New York, NY), 1972.

In the Beginning, Knopf (New York, NY), 1975.

The Book of Lights, Knopf (New York, NY), 1981.

Davita's Harp, Knopf (New York, NY), 1985.

The Gift of Asher Lev (sequel to My Name Is Asher Lev), Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.

I Am the Clay, Knopf (New York, NY), 1992.

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

The Tree of Here, Knopf (New York, NY), 1993.

The Sky of Now, Knopf (New York, NY), 1995.

Zebra and Other Stories, Knopf (New York, NY), 1998.

OTHER

Jewish Ethics (pamphlet series), 14 volumes, Leaders Training Fellowship (New York, NY), 1964–1969.

The Jew Confronts Himself in American Literature, Sacred Heart School of Theology (Hales Corners, WI), 1975.

Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews (non-fiction), Knopf (New York, NY), 1978.

Ethical Living for a Modern World, Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York, NY), 1985.

Theo Tobiasse: Artist in Exile (nonfiction), Rizzoli International (New York, NY), 1986.

The Gates of November: Chronicles of the Slepak Family (nonfiction), Knopf (New York, NY), 1996.

(With Isaac Stern) My First Seventy-nine Years, Knopf (New York, NY), 1999.

(Adaptor, with Aaron Posner) The Chosen (play; based on Potok's novel), Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 2001.

Old Men at Midnight (novellas), Knopf (New York, NY), 2001.

Author of short story "Moon." Also contributor of short stories and articles to TriQuarterly, Commentary, Re-constructionist, Moment, Esquire, American Judaism, Forward, Saturday Review, New York Times Book Review, Kenyon Review, American Voice, New England Review, and other periodicals. Selected readings were recorded and released on cassette by National Public Radio, 1995.

ADAPTATIONS: The Chosen, a Landau Productions movie based on Potok's novel of the same name, was distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox, written by Edwin Gordon, and starred Robbie Benson, Maximilian Schell, Rod Steiger, and Barry Miller, 1982; The Chosen was also adapted as a musical for the stage and produced in New York, NY, 1987, and as an audiobook, Recorded Books, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Chaim Potok is familiar to many readers as the author of best-selling novels like The Chosen and The Promise. Less well known, though equally important to Potok, was his devotion to Judaism: he was an ordained rabbi and a respected scholar of Judaic texts. Potok's personal attempts to reconcile these disparate commitments enrich his fiction, as many of his works explore the ways in which men and women learn to deal with cultural conflict. As Potok once explained in Philadelphia Inquirer: "While this tension is exhausting,… it is fuel for me. Without it, I would have nothing to say."

Because of his Jewish heritage, Potok was frequently called an American Jewish writer, although he preferred the label of "American writer writing about a small and particular American world," as he once stated in an essay for Studies in American Jewish Literature. His vision, and his novels, attracted readers of many different religious faiths during his lifetime, and his works continued to provide readers with insight and inspiration after his death. According to New York Times Book Review contributor Hugh Nissenson, this attraction exists, in part, because of Potok's "talent for evoking the physical details of this world: the tree-lined streets, the apartment filled with books, the cold radiators, the steaming glasses of coffee." Potok, however, attributed the success of his novels to the universality of his subject matter. Quoting James Joyce, he once explained to Millie Ball in Times-Picayune: "'In the particular is contained the universal.' When you write about one person or set of people, if you dig deeply enough, you will ultimately uncover basic humanity."

Potok's own life shows a similarity to that of some of his characters. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, he was drawn to the less-restrictive doctrine of Conservative Judaism as a young adult and was eventually ordained a Conservative rabbi. Potok's interest in writing and literature, sparked by Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, was opposed by both his family and teachers. His mother, for example, when told of her son's aspiration to write, remarked, "'You want to be a writer? Fine. You be a brain surgeon, on the side [you'll write stories],'" as Potok recalled in Fort Lauderdale News. His teachers at Jewish parochial school responded similarly, disappointed that the young man would want to take time away from studying the Talmud to read and write fiction. Potok once discussed these reactions in an interview with S. Lillian Kremer in Studies in American Jewish Literature: "There was anger. There was rage. I still experience it…. [The] Jewish tradition … casts a very definite denigrating eye upon the whole enterprise of fiction…. Scholarship is what counts in the Jewish tradition, Talmudic scholarship, not the product of the imagination."

This conflict between religious and secular commitments became a recurring theme in Potok's novels. In his first book, The Chosen, Potok portrays Danny Saunders, a young man torn between fulfilling the expectations of his rabbi father and satisfying his own need for secular knowledge. The Saunders family belongs to the Jewish sect called Hasidim, whose members are "known for their mystical interpretation of Judaic sources and intense devotion to their spiritual leaders," according to Kremer, writing in Dictionary of Literary Biography. When Danny becomes an adult, he is expected to take on his father's role as tzaddik, which Nissenson described as "a teacher, spiritual adviser, mediator between his community of followers and God, and living sacrifice who takes the suffering of his people—of all Israel—upon himself." To strengthen Danny's soul and thus prepare him "to assume the burdens of his followers," wrote Kremer, Rabbi Saunders has raised his son according to the unusual Hasidic tradition which dictates that under certain circumstances a father and son should speak only when discussing religious texts.

In direct contrast to the Saunders are the Malters: Reuven, who becomes Danny's close friend, and Reuven's father, who tutors Danny in secular subjects. As Orthodox Jews, the Malters "emphasize a rational, intellectual approach to Judaic law and theology," explained Kremer. Reuven's father recognizes the importance of Judaic scholarship, but he, unlike Rabbi Saunders, encourages his son to study secular subjects as well. Furthermore, Malter has built his relationship with Reuven on mutual love and respect, not suffering. Though Danny's problems with his father are crucial to the narrative, The Chosen is more than a story of parental and religious conflict but also about the form in which Judaism will survive, either couched in supersition or in a new form of secularism.

The Chosen received mixed criticism from reviewers. New York Times contributor Eliot Fremont-Smith described the book as "a long, earnest, somewhat affecting and sporadically fascinating tale of religious conflict and generational confrontation in which the characters never come fully alive because they are kept subservient to theme: They don't have ideas so much as they represent ideas." While New Republic contributor Philip Toynbee observed that Potok's prose has "too many exhausted phrases and dead words," the critic maintained that The Chosen "is a fascinating book in its own right. Few Jewish writers have emerged from so deep in the heart of orthodoxy: fewer still have been able to write about their emergence with such an unforced sympathy for both sides and every participant." Concluded Nissenson: "The structural pattern of the novel, the beautifully wrought contrapuntal relationship of the boys, and their fathers, is complete. We rejoice, and we weep a little, at those haunting Hasidic melodies which transfigure their words."

Potok's novel My Name Is Asher Lev is a variation "on an almost classic theme: the isolation of the artist from society," according to Thomas Lask in New York Times. Despite its conventional theme, the novel has what Lask called "a feeling of freshness, of something brand-new" that he attributed not to "the artist and his driving needs but [to] the society from which he is inexorably isolating himself: the intense, ingrown, passionate, mystical world of Hasidism." The protagonist, Asher Lev, lives in a familial and spiritual environment in which his parents are devout Hasidim and his father is actively involved in rebuilding the postwar Jewish community in Europe. Lev, however, is a gifted artist, and his father neither understands nor respects his son's artistry. While art is not expressly forbidden in the Hasidic tradition, it is considered "blasphemous at worst and mere indulgence of personal vanity at best," according to Kremer in Dictionary of Literary Biography. The tenuous relationship between Lev and his father is strained further when Lev, as a part of his studies, learns to draw crucifixions and nudes.

Although Lev does not consciously reject his heritage, he finds it impossible to repress his artistic instinct. Lask observes that while both Lev and the Hasidic community do their "best to retain the old relationship,… there seems to be an artistic destiny greater than both of them." Lev's reluctance to abandon his religious tradition is a significant difference between Potok's characters and those of other American Jewish writers, according to Kremer. "They do not share the assimilationist goals of the Jews about whom Saul Bellow and Philip Roth write…. In the instances when Potok's characters enter the secular public world, they maintain orthodox private lives." Even after he has left his family and community, Lev identifies himself as an observant Jew. Thus, as John H. Timmerman observed in Christian Century, Lev "stands not in open rebellion against, but as a troubled seeker of, his place within a tradition."

In 1990 Potok published The Gift of Asher Lev, a sequel to My Name Is Asher Lev. The novel begins twenty years after the events in the first book: Lev has become a highly acclaimed artist living in southern France, has married, and has a son and a daughter. When he receives news that his uncle Yitzchok has died, Lev returns to Brooklyn for the funeral. Almost as soon as he arrives, he wishes to return to France, but his wife and children become attached to Lev's family and prefer the familial atmosphere of the Hasidic community to the relative isolation they experienced in France. Lev's father and the Rebbe, the spiritual leader of the Hasidim, want his family to stay as well, and it is not long before Lev discovers that their motive is to groom his son for leadership of the Rebbe's international movement. The novel concludes—in a manner reminiscent of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac—with Lev "sacrificing" his son to God. He leaves his son and family in Brooklyn and returns to France to resume his artistic career, which, he discovers, has been revitalized by the whole experience.

Critical reaction to The Gift of Asher Lev was mixed. Chicago Tribune Books contributor Andy Solomon believed that "there is much about the book to admire," such as Potok's ability to add detail to his settings and portray the spirit of the Hasidic community. However, the critic also noted flaws in the narrative and complained that Lev is not the compelling character he was in the first book. "As Asher sleepwalks through these pages," wrote Solomon, "so too does the plot wander, despite some resolutions that form toward the end. The world of the Hasidim is intriguing, and Potok has knowledgeable insights to share about art. But Asher Lev casts far less spell in this revisit than he did two decades ago." Nikki Stiller observed in New York Times Book Review that Lev becomes a somewhat muted character in the sequel because he "never considers abandoning orthodoxy." Stiller added that Potok "does not wrestle with the angel of autonomy." Brian Morton, however, asserted in Times Literary Supplement that when paired with the previous Asher Lev novel, The Gift of Asher Lev "covers much the same ground with considerable subtlety." Of Potok's writings, Morton also concluded that the author demonstrates "a marked awareness of the internal tensions of modern Judaism, which are prior to its conflicts and accommodations with the Gentile world. His Judaism has content, not just form; beliefs, not just abstract 'pieties'; an exact mentality that participates in a wider society at the same time as it belongs to a distinct enclave."

Potok's novels In the Beginning, The Book of Lights, Davita's Harp continue to elaborate upon the theme of conflict between the religious and secular worlds. In Davita's Harp, however, the author tells this story from a female perspective. "That leap takes sensitivity and some daring, and Potok handles it well," stated Detroit News contributor Lisa Schwarzbaum, adding that Davita's Harp is "a warm, decent, generous and patient exploration of important issues facing Jewish women today." When the novel opens, Davita is eight years old. She is the daughter of a Jewish mother and a Christian father who have abandoned their respective religions and are now devoted communists. Davita experiments with both faiths, but she is entranced by the Jewish rituals practiced by her neighbors and eventually embraces Orthodox Judaism. She soon realizes the limitations of her religion, however, when she is denied a prize as the best student in her parochial school graduating class solely because she is a girl.

A Time critic observed that "during the conflict between Davita's reverence for Hebraic tradition and her determination to make a place for herself, the narrative becomes far livelier and suggests possibilities for a worthier sequel." Paul Cowan commented in New York Times Book Review that the first quarter of Davita's Harp, which concerns the political activities of Davita's parents, contains "some of Mr. Potok's most disappointing pages," but that "as Davita comes to life, so does the book." Chicago Tribune Book World contributor George Cohen maintained that the work provides "an engrossing plot—Potok is a master storyteller—but much of the pleasure in reading Davita's Harp is the beauty of the language." One of the harsher critical remarks about Davita's Harp was voiced by Andrew Weinberger, who commented in Los Angeles Times Book Review: "The problem with this novel is that it is too predictable, too familiar…. Potok could do better, one feels, than to walk down this old road again."

Set in Korea during the 1950s, I Am the Clay portrays the difficult journey of two aged peasants and a young orphaned boy from Seoul to a refugee camp. "Potok focuses in on the struggle for survival as the farmer, his wife and the boy battle hunger, sickness, cold, exhaustion and the land itself," observed Irving Abrahamson in the Chicago Tribune Books. The book was deemed "a modern myth" by Barbara Gold Zingman in New York Times Book Review, the critic going on to note that I Am the Clay explores themes of human connection amid suffering and the confusion and hope associated with mystical and religious belief.

Potok has also written works for children and young adults. In The Tree of Here he introduces a young boy named Jason who is troubled by his family's frequent relocations. The "tree" of the title is a dogwood tree that serves as a symbol of rootedness and the sense of being home. The Sky of Now depicts a glider flight experienced by ten-year-old Brian, who suffers from a fear of heights. Zebra and Other Stories is a collection of coming-of-age tales suitable for both teens and adults. The characters in Zebra face the challenges of parental divorce and bullying, blended families and social consciousness as they discover their places in an adult world. Horn Book contributor Nancy Vasilakis felt that the stories contain "layers of meaning, and teens will discover that one reading won't be enough." In Booklist, Stephanie Zvirin declared Zebra to be a "wonderful introduction" to Potok's work, adding that although the stories are written for younger readers, the author "respects his audience enough to allow them to draw from it what they will." A Kirkus Reviews critic commented, "Readers sensitive to nuances of language and situation will be totally absorbed by these profound character studies."

Potok's final work of fiction, Old Men at Midnight, is a series of three linked novellas that examine war and all it horrors. Ilana David Dinn is the character who appears throughout all three stories as she learns the tales of three different men and their various experiences in the Holocaust, under Communist despot Josef Stalin, and in World War II. A Publishers Weekly reviewer found that the character of Illana was reduced "to little more than a cipher." The reviewer added, "But 'The War Doctor,' the grimmest and most nuanced of the stories, alone is worth the price of admission." Chris Barsanti, writing in Book, noted, "The stories themselves are masterfully written. This delicately realized book about history and memory is shot through with flashes of humanity." Booklist contributor Kristine Huntley called Old Men at Midnight "moving and powerful."

In addition to fiction, Potok also wrote the nonfiction book Wanderings: Chaim Potok's Story of the Jews. Although factual, Wanderings is similar to Potok's novels, Jack Riemer suggested in America. "Just as [in The Chosen Potok] … sought for his self in the guise of a story about a young man wrestling with modernity, so here he searches for his soul in the form of a confrontation with his roots and with his memories." Potok once explained to Robert Dahlin in Publishers Weekly: "I went wandering inside my own tradition, its history…. And I didn't move on until I understood."

Wanderings, a lavishly illustrated book, was described by Chicago Tribune Book World contributor Dan Rottenberg as "a rare phenomenon: a coffee-table book with some real intellectual bite to it." Beginning with the family of Abraham, Wanderings traces 4,000 years of Jewish history. Potok portrays the Jews as a people who have cohabited with—and been persecuted by—many different civilizations throughout history, and who, despite their small population, have usually managed to survive their persecutors. According to Rottenberg, "what emerges from Potok's mixture of history, Scriptures, novelistic writing, and personal reminiscences is a portrait of Judaism as very much a living, breathing, kicking organism."

Several reviewers maintain that Potok's training as a novelist served him well in his first foray into nonfiction. Rottenberg, for example, wrote, "The eye of the novelist can enhance our understanding of history, especially when the novelist is someone like Potok, whose fictitious work has always been firmly rooted in cultural and historical scholarship…. Potok is able to paint scenes for us, to put flesh on his characters, to speculate about their motives, without abandoning the detachment of the historian." New York Times Book Review contributor Alan Mintz described Wanderings as "a mixed performance. Mr. Potok can produce a good, strong narrative that also maintains a sense of historical proportion; and his occasional evocations of settings and feelings do contribute to a fuller sense of the past. But often the pursuit of drama gets him into trouble and the writing becomes stylized." Michael J. Bandler, however, suggested in Christian Science Monitor that "one cannot resist the temptation to observe without being facetious that as a historian, Potok solidifies his reputation as a fine novelist."

Potok also helped violinist Isaac Stern craft an autobiography titled My First Seventy-nine Years. The work details Stern's musical career as well as his role in saving Carnegie Hall from destruction and his devotion to the nation of Israel. Although the book is told from a first-person point of view and is purportedly Stern's voice, "Potok makes it flow beautifully, in a voice that is vital and exciting," according to Ray Olson in Booklist. Carol J. Binkowski, writing in Library Journal, deemed the book "a sensitive and engrossing history of a man and an era."

In a piece for the Web site Jvibe, Elizabeth Silver observed that Potok "remains a revered scholar in not only the Jewish and literary communities, but throughout the world. His philosophy of cultures transcends into all realms of humanity. Chaim Potok has spent the majority of his life silently mapping the territory of his Jewish past through his novels that have captivated people into his fictional worlds because of their universal truths." Silver concluded: "Potok has the ability to write novels that touch so many distinct people and also dive into the core of problems in today's society with such honesty and realism."

In an obituary for Potok, who died in 2002, Newsweek contributor Alex Rubin summed up the writer's work this way: "His fictional characters remained bound within the insular world of Hasidic Judaism, but his powerfully human prose transcended religious denomination." Robert Gottlieb, who was Potok's editor for more than three decades, told Carlin Romano in an obituary in Philadelphia Inquirer, "Whether we're talking about 10 years from now or 30 years from now, The Chosen will be in print, and thousands and thousands of people will discover it and be moved and educated by it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Authors in the News, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 1, 1976, Volume 2, 1976.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 2, 1974, Volume 7, 1977, Volume 14, 1980, Volume 26, 1983.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 28: Twentieth-Century American-Jewish Fiction Writers, 1984, Volume 152: American Novelists since World War II, Fourth Series, 1995.

Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1984, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1985.

Walden, Daniel, editor, Conversations with Chaim Potok, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2001.

PERIODICALS

America, February 7, 1979, Jack Riemer.

Book, November-December, 2001, Chris Barsanti, review of Old Men at Midnight, p. 65.

Booklist, January 1 and 15, 1996, Julie Corsaro, review of The Sky of Now, p. 848; July, 1998, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Zebra and Other Stories, p. 1878; September 15, 1999, Ray Olson, review of My First Seventy-nine Years, p. 96; September 15, 2003, Kristine Huntley, review of Old Men at Midnight, p. 195.

Book Week, April 23, 1967.

Chicago Tribune, December 1, 1987.

Chicago Tribune Book World, November 26, 1978, Dan Rottenberg, review of Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews; October 11, 1981; March 24, 1985, George Cohen.

Christian Century, February 17, 1982; May 16, 1984.

Christian Science Monitor, February 12, 1979, Michael J. Bandler.

CLA Journal, June, 1971.

Commentary, October, 1972; April, 1979; March, 1982.

Detroit News, March 17, 1985, Lisa Schwarzbaum, review of Davita's Harp.

Fort Lauderdale News, March 22, 1976.

Horn Book, November, 1998, Nancy Vasilakis, review of Zebra and Other Stories, p. 739.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1992, p. 423; July 1, 1998, review of Zebra and Other Stories.

Library Journal, November 1, 1999, Carol J. Binkowski, review of My First Seventy-nine Years, p. 86.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, November 8, 1981; May 26, 1985, Andrew Weinberger.

New Republic, June 7, 1967, Philip Toynbee, review of The Chosen.

New Yorker, November 17, 1975; November 9, 1981.

New York Times, April 24, 1967; September 12, 1969; April 21, 1972; December 3, 1975; November 2, 1986; July 24, 1987; January 3, 1988; January 7, 1988.

New York Times Book Review, May 7, 1967; September 14, 1969; April 16, 1972; October 19, 1975; December 17, 1978, Alan Mintz; October 11, 1981; March 31, 1985, Paul Cowan, review of Davita's Harp, p. 12; May 13, 1990, Nikki Stiller, review of The Gift of Asher Levi, p. 29; June 28, 1992, Barbara Gold Zingman, review of I Am the Clay, p. 18; December 26, 1999, David Mermelstein, review of My First Seventy-nine Years, p. 14.

Philadelphia Bulletin, May 16, 1974.

Philadelphia Inquirer, April 27, 1976.

Publishers Weekly, May 22, 1978; December 12, 1986, p. 46; August 30, 1993, p. 96; November 27, 1995, p. 69; November 5, 2001, review of Old Men at Midnight, p. 43.

Saturday Review, September 20, 1969; April 15, 1972.

School Library Journal, October, 1993, p. 108; January, 1996, Susan Scheps, review of The Sky of Now, p. 93.

Studies in American Jewish Literature, number 4, 1985.

Time, November 3, 1975; October 19, 1981; March 25, 1985.

Times (London, England), December 20, 1990.

Times Literary Supplement, March 5, 1970; October 6, 1972; April 9, 1976; May 28, 1982; November 2, 1990, Brian Morton.

Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), February 25, 1973.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), May 6, 1990, Andy Solomon; May 17, 1992, Irving Abrahamson, review of I Am the Clay, p. 6.

Village Voice Literary Supplement, February, 1995.

Washington Post, November 27, 1981.

Washington Post Book World, December 13, 1978.