The Chosen By Chaim Potok Analysis
A Complicated Friendship
Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen” is the story of two Jewish boys from different families who learn and grow through a complicated yet eye-opening friendship. The two protagonists are Rueven Malter (a traditional Orthodox Jew), and Danny Saunders (a Hasidic Jew). The boys become friends after a heated baseball game where Danny purposefully injures Rueven’s eye and sends him to the hospital where he receives surgery to correct the wound. Tension at the game is palpable due to flying insults between the two teams, mostly aimed at differences between Jewish cultures. To Rueven’s surprise, Danny comes to apologize. At first, Rueven is fueled by anger and hostility towards Danny, but soon the boys become friends as they realize their similarities: their love of learning, sharp minds, and common Jewish faith. Both boys study the Talmud with great care and find common ground through this as well. However, the boys soon discover they have important differences including family life …show more content…
One morning at breakfast, Rueven mentions to Reb Saunders that many Jews were saying it was time that Palestine became a Jewish homeland instead of a place where “pious Jews went to die”. Reb Saunders replied in an outrage, “his eyes suddenly wide with rage, his beard trembling” (Potok 197). He yells that “When the Messiah comes, we will have Eretz Yisroel, a Holy Land, not a land contaminated by Jewish goyim!” (Potok 198). His outburst reflects the anti-Zionist belief of the time that a secular Jewish state would be a sacrilege, a violation of the Torah. His outrage would not surprise most anti-Zionists of the time, who believed that “Zionism [was] an insidious effort to transform the religion into a kind of statism, replacing its focus on God with a focus on building a kind of state”
Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen” is the story of two Jewish boys from different families who learn and grow through a complicated yet eye-opening friendship. The two protagonists are Rueven Malter (a traditional Orthodox Jew), and Danny Saunders (a Hasidic Jew). The boys become friends after a heated baseball game where Danny purposefully injures Rueven’s eye and sends him to the hospital where he receives surgery to correct the wound. Tension at the game is palpable due to flying insults between the two teams, mostly aimed at differences between Jewish cultures. To Rueven’s surprise, Danny comes to apologize. At first, Rueven is fueled by anger and hostility towards Danny, but soon the boys become friends as they realize their similarities: their love of learning, sharp minds, and common Jewish faith. Both boys study the Talmud with great care and find common ground through this as well. However, the boys soon discover they have important differences including family life …show more content…
One morning at breakfast, Rueven mentions to Reb Saunders that many Jews were saying it was time that Palestine became a Jewish homeland instead of a place where “pious Jews went to die”. Reb Saunders replied in an outrage, “his eyes suddenly wide with rage, his beard trembling” (Potok 197). He yells that “When the Messiah comes, we will have Eretz Yisroel, a Holy Land, not a land contaminated by Jewish goyim!” (Potok 198). His outburst reflects the anti-Zionist belief of the time that a secular Jewish state would be a sacrilege, a violation of the Torah. His outrage would not surprise most anti-Zionists of the time, who believed that “Zionism [was] an insidious effort to transform the religion into a kind of statism, replacing its focus on God with a focus on building a kind of state”