In The Beginning
New York: Fawcett Crest, 1975. Later printing. Mass market paperback. 432 pages. Some damp staining to cover and some pages. David Lurie learns that all beginnings are hard. He must fight for his place against the bullies in his Depression-shadowed Bronx neighborhood and his own frail health. As a young man, he must start anew and define his own path of personal belief that diverges sharply with his devout father and everything he has been taught. Chaim Potok (February 17, 1929 – July 23, 2002) was an American author, novelist, playwright, editor and rabbi. Of the more than dozen novels he authored, his first book The Chosen (1967), was listed on The New York Times’ best seller list for 39 weeks and which was adapted into a well-received 1981 feature film by the same title. After receiving a master's degree in English literature, Potok enlisted with the U.S. Army as a chaplain. He served in South Korea from 1955 to 1957. He described his time in South Korea as a transformative experience. In 1964, the Potoks moved to Brooklyn, where Chaim became the managing editor of the magazine Conservative Judaism and joined the faculty of the Teachers’ Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The following year, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia and later, chairman of the publication committee. Potok has had a considerable influence on Jewish American authors. His work was significant for discussing the conflict between the traditional aspects of Jewish thought and culture and modernity to a wider, non-Jewish culture. He taught a graduate seminar on Postmodernism at the University of Pennsylvania. In the Beginning is the 1975 fourth novel by Chaim Potok. The novel tells the story of David Lurie, an Orthodox Jewish boy from the Bronx growing up in the Great Depression of the 1930s up to the revealing of the fate of the Lurie family's relatives in Poland at the end of World War II. During World War II, the German invasion of Poland cuts off contact between the Luries and their families there. After the war ends, the Luries learn that everyone in both families -- nearly one hundred and fifty people -- were killed in Bergen Belsen. During the course of the novel, David develops an interest in Bible scholarship, and eventually discovers secular authors who discuss the human origins of the Bible, in direct opposition to the belief that the Bible is the word of God as revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. David perceives an edge of anti-Semitism in many of these works, but finds it difficult to ignore the scholarly arguments these authors are making. David's ultimate destiny is to become a Bible scholar who is still a person of faith -- to employ modern methods to make a new beginning for his people. Condition: Fair.
Keywords: Jews, David Lurie, Orthodox, Poland, Holocaust, Immigration, Great Depression, World War II, Second World War, Religion, Spirituality, Ethnic Identify, Anti-Semitism
ISBN: 0449240320
[Book #85683]
Price: $12.50