Reading Order
Chaim PotokChaim Potok's Brooklyn Novels Reading Order
Chaim Potok's The Chosen (1967) is the foundational novel of American Jewish religious fiction — Danny Saunders, the brilliant son of a Hasidic rebbe, and Reuven Malter, the Modern Orthodox son of a Talmud scholar, who become friends after a baseball game in wartime Brooklyn. Potok, a Conservative rabbi and scholar, wrote The Chosen as a record of Jewish America in the 1940s — the conflict between Hasidic tradition and Modern Orthodox rationalism, between Zionism and anti-Zionism, between fathers and sons. It was an immediate bestseller, the first novel by an American Jewish writer to enter both the Jewish and secular mainstream simultaneously. The Promise (1969), the direct sequel following Danny and Reuven through graduate school and early professional life, continues the story; Danny Saunders reappears in The Gift of Asher Lev (1990) as an adult character.
Where to start
The Chosen
Complete Chaim Potok Book List
- 1Buy
The Chosen
Chaim Potok·1967·The main novel — Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter in wartime Brooklyn, the friendship between Hasidic and Modern Orthodox Judaism. - 2Buy
The Promise
Chaim Potok·1969·The direct sequel — Danny and Reuven in their twenties, Danny in psychology, Reuven in rabbinical school, the promises of the first novel kept and broken. - 3Buy
My Name Is Asher Lev
Chaim Potok·1972·The companion Potok masterwork — the Hasidic artist who must choose between his gift and his community, the most celebrated Potok novel after The Chosen. - 4Buy
The Gift of Asher Lev
Chaim Potok·1990·The Asher Lev sequel — the artist in middle age returning to Crown Heights, Reuven and Danny as minor characters, the completion of the Potok world. - 5Buy
Davita's Harp
Chaim Potok·1985·The Potok novel from a female perspective — Ilana Davita Chandal in a Communist family moving toward Judaism, the Potok world seen by a girl rather than a boy.
Chaim Potok — Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read The Chosen before The Promise?
Yes — The Promise is a direct sequel that picks up immediately after The Chosen ends, with the same characters, and assumes full knowledge of the earlier novel's events and relationships.
What is the silence about in The Chosen?
Reb Saunders raises Danny in silence — communicating with him only through Talmud study, never in ordinary conversation — as a way of teaching him compassion and the ability to feel others' pain. The explanation comes in one of the novel's most moving scenes.
Should I read The Chosen or My Name Is Asher Lev first?
The Chosen first — it introduces the Brooklyn Hasidic world that Asher Lev inhabits, and My Name Is Asher Lev is richer for knowing that world. But My Name Is Asher Lev works independently if you start there.
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