Chaim Potok was a best-selling novelist and an ordained rabbi. The Chosen was his first novel and was released in 1967. It was the first popular American novel to feature the world of Hasidic Judaism, an orthodox sect known for its conservatism and social isolation.
The New York Times describes Potok as a “bearded man with scholarly mien.” His parents were Hasidic Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe. He lived a life similar to Danny Saunders in which the Orthodox Jewish culture was the center of his world and the secular world rarely intruded. In a 1992 interview, Potok describes his childhood as both joyous and oppressive.
He displayed some talent for drawing and painting, but...
