Novelist and scholar Chaim Potok was born in the Bronx on February 17, 1929 and died in Merion, Pennsylvania, on July 23, 2002. His novels were extremely popular; his first book, The Chosen, was on the best-seller list for more than six months....

00-00-0000 Chaim Potok, 73; rabbi who turned to writing -- 'The Chosen' among novels By JOANN LOVIGLIO, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Date: 07-24-2002, Wednesday Section: LOCAL NEWS Edtion: All Editions.=.Two Star B. Two Star P. One Star B Biographical: CHAIM POTOK PHILADELPHIA -...

In the following review, Freedman commends Potok's "vivid" characterizations and narrative presentation of The Promise, but finds shortcomings in his excessive exposition of Jewish theology.

In the following excerpt, Rabinowitz offers a mixed assessment of The Promise, faulting it for intrusive or overly academic psychologizing among the characters.

Burdened with the same protagonists and the same unvital prose as The Chosen, The Promise suffers from the same faults, primarily Mr. Potok's utter pretentiousness, which makes his work pseudo-literary rather than literary. The artificiality is apparent in several aspects of the work. First there is the monochromed, mono-rhythmed rhetoric, which gives a dubious unity to the novel…. The book is also burdened with a purposeless running literary allusion from Joyce's Ulysses ("Molly...