THE CARNAGE CONTINUES :

Chaim Potok, the Author of 'The Chosen,' Is Dead at 73 (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 23, 2002)

Chaim Potok, the rabbi-turned-author whose Orthodox upbringing inspired ``The Chosen'' and other best-selling novels that explored the clash between religious and secular life, died Tuesday of brain cancer. He was 73. [...]

Like Herman Wouk, Potok was highly regarded within the Jewish community, but less so within the general literary community, especially compared to more secular Jewish-American authors such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. [...]

He was born Herman Harold Potok in the Bronx, the eldest son of Jewish immigrants from Poland. Raised in the Orthodox tradition, Potok embraced Conservative Judaism as a young adult and was eventually ordained a Conservative rabbi in 1954.

The Chosen is a truly great American novel, far superior to anything Bellow ever wrote and only Roth's last few novels are even worthy of mention in the same sentence.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 23, 2002 8:39 PM