A sad day
Chaim Potok, one of my favorite authors, died today of brain cancer at age 73. Here's a link to his obituary.

I was first introduced to Potok's writing in a freshman college course, in which we read his most famous novel "The Chosen." It was my first in-depth look at the lives of Jews living in America and was quite eye-opening, having grown up in a fairly homogenous mongrel-European protestant community in rural Pennsylvania. I had one Jewish friend growing up, but I never got to see what modern Judaism looked like in practice. Her parents were basically Russian atheists who got to the U.S. with help from the American Jewish community, then more or less ceased practicing once here.

I went on to read the sequel, "The Promise," as well as Potok's two books about a Hasidic Jewish artist, "My Name is Asher Lev" and "The Gift of Asher Lev." I also really enjoyed "Davita's Harp," which has a female protagonist, and "The Book of Lights," about a Jewish chaplain serving in the Korean War. I highly recommend all of his novels that I have read.