Chaim Potok Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Chaim Potok

Chaim Potok, rabbi and critical scholar of Judaic texts, has demonstrated in his literary career that the American novel is indeed a viable genre for writing about Jewish theology, liturgy, history, and scholarship. He has brought to American fiction a feeling for biblical exegesis, Talmudic study, and the mystical writings of the Cabala and the Zohar. Born in New York on 17 February 1929, to Polish-Jewish immigrants Mollie Friedman and Benjamin Max Potok, the novelist's formative years were spent in a traditional Jewish home, and he was educated in Jewish parochial schools. In early adolescence, Potok read Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, which has given major direction to his creative activity. Potok recognized in Waugh's work the capacity of the novel to successfully transport readers into cultural environments foreign from their own, and he determined that fiction would be his vehicle to weave Jewish civilization into American literature. With that end in mind, he undertook a rigorous religious and secular education at Yeshiva University, where he earned the B.A.

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