SOURCE: "Generation Gap," in The New York Times Book Review, December 1, 1996, p. 33.

In the following review, Barringer praises The Gates of November as a "fascinating" tale, though finds shortcomings in Potok's overreaching history of Soviet Jewry.

Acts of dissent in a totalitarian state can seem incongruously mundane. In some places, it is an act of courage to observe an anniversary, or to hang a sheet with a few words scrawled on it above a busy downtown street.

The last was what Vladimir and Maria Slepak did in June 1978, when they found themselves locked in their Moscow apartment by K.G.B. agents. "Let us go to our son in Israel," read their makeshift placard. K.G.B. agents rushed to break down their apartment door, and Vladimir Slepak—called Volodya by all—spent five years in exile in Siberia. It was the logical culmination of nine years as...