Chaim Potok (February 17, 1929 - July 23, 2002) was an American Jewish author and rabbi.
Herman Harold Potok was born in the Bronx to Benjamin Max (d. 1958) and Mollie (Friedman) Potok (d. 1985), Jewish immigrants from Poland. His Hebrew name was Chaim Tzvi. He received an Orthodox Jewish education. After reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited as a teenager he decided to become a writer.
In 1950, Potok graduated from Yeshiva University with ...
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Chaim Potok (February 17, 1929 - July 23, 2002) was an American Jewish author and rabbi.
Herman Harold Potok was born in the Bronx to Benjamin Max (d. 1958) and Mollie (Friedman) Potok (d. 1985), Jewish immigrants from Poland. His Hebrew name was Chaim Tzvi. He received an Orthodox Jewish education. After reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited as a teenager he decided to become a writer.
In 1950, Potok graduated from Yeshiva University with a B.A., summa cum laude, in English Literature. After receiving a master's degree in Hebrew literature, and his later rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Potok joined the U.S. Army as a chaplain. He served in South Korea from 1955 to 1957. He described his time in South Korea as being a transformative experience. Brought up to believe that the Jewish people were central to history and God's plans, he experienced a region where there were almost no Jews and no anti-semitism, yet whose religious believers prayed...
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