Chaim Potok (1929–2002)

This was a non-fiction read, but read like a novel. It was the story of the Slepak family from the days of Bolshevism to the son's eventual emigration to Israel. Potok collected information from the family through taped interviews and photographs. This Jewish family suffered terribly under Brezhnev, Kosygin, and Tikhonov regimes. From Potok's epilogue, ""Can we learn something from these chronicles about iron righteousness and rigid doctrine, about the stony heart, the sealed mind, the capricious use of law, and the tragedies that often result when theories are not adjusted to realities?" 272 pages… (more)

Nostalgia-tinged tales of baseball, childhood, and coming of age will always push my buttons. Judaism less so, and I’m not sure I will retain much of the detailing here of Jewish and Zionist traditions. The lead characters’ reverence for study, their keenness to lose themselves in it, is memorable, as is the overall package. (Interesting how the reverence or respect accorded here to Freud and the nascent United Nations now feel so dated). Lots more to admire: the strong Brooklyn sense of place and time, the calm measured narration, the lovely cover image (of a coming of age boy thoughtfully preening - Penguin paperback edition). Another bonus in that edition: the hilarious debunking in Shalom Auslander’s short introdution and context-setting, which helps the reader to enjoy the work (rather than its worthiness).… (more)

This book, Chaim Potok's only work of non-fiction, was a history of the Jews, from Ur (Abraham's birthplace) to Entebbe. I gave the book three stars despite the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed it, and found large parts of it worthwhile. Several reasons:

1) The treatment of the last 170 years of Jewish history was overly compressed;
2) Very short shrift was given American Jewish history;
3) The treatment of Islam focused on its "golden era" in Spain, not the far more representative periods of extreme violence and bloodshed. Think September 11; and
4) The author thoroughly trashes the period of history known as The Enlightenment.

The book, as it must, focuses heavily on the ups and downs of pre-Diaspora life in the Levant. That portion of the book was extremely good. Potok seems to take the point of view that Jewish life, at that point, transferred to Europe, and at that point Jewish life died at first a slow, than an accelerating death. He views the Enlightenment era as a disaster.

That is problematic. The pre-Enlightenment period was horrific. And when the Enlightenment first spread to England and then America, the results were extremely positive for the Jewish people. There is no question in my mind that the European interlude was a barely mitigated tragedy and disaster. He does give very good, even humorous examples of the totally crazed nature of Catholic religious belief and other fringe Christian beliefs of the Middle Ages.

Inexplicably, he barely mentions the Protestant Reformation and does not at all mention the Gutenberg Press. Overall, the book was well worth the month I spent in reading it. Was it perfect; hardly.… (more)