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Chaim Potok And The Problem Of Assimilation For The American Jew
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- Chaim Potok And The Problem Of Assimilation For The American Jew - Chaim Potok And The Problem Of Assimilation For The American...
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- Chaim Potok And The Problem Of Assimilation For The American - ... In the Beginning, also focus on the problem of Jewish assimilation into...
- Chaim Potok And The Problem Of Assimilation For The American - ... In the Beginning, also focus on the problem of Jewish assimilation into...
Free Essay Submitted by bignerds on 06/28/2008 08:11 PM
- Category: Social Issues
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Chaim Potok And The Problem Of Assimilation For The American Jew
Chaim Potok and the Problem of
Assimilation for the American Jew
America has been a country of immigrants since Europeans first settled it over five hundred years ago. America has always faced the problem of assimilation, a challenge faced by every country with a considerable immigrant population. Because immigrants founded America, her culture is a combination of the cultures of other countries. Should these immigrants isolate themselves from the mainstream American culture, or should they sacrifice the culture of their homelands for the benefits American culture has to offer? Judaism, one of the world's oldest religions, has remained strong over its six thousand year history by remaining distinct and isolated from other cultures. Chaim Potok, in his books The Chosen, My Name is Asher Lev, In the Beginning, and The Book of Lights, focuses on this conflict between Orthodox Judaism and the secular world.
Many of Chaim Potok's characters want the American Jewry to remain isolated from the mainstream American culture:
The world kills us! The world flays our skin from our bodies and throws us into the flames! The world laughs at Torah! And if it does not kill us, it tempts us! It misleads us! It contaminates us! It asks us to join in its ugliness, its abominations! (The Chosen 127)
The Chosen "deals with the problems Jews have faced in trying to preserve their heritage in particular, the problem of how to deal with the danger of assimilation" (Young)). The Jews have always been professionals occupying jobs in medicine, law, education, and other fields requiring a college degree. American Jews, however, face a dilemma: "Ideas from this secular world inevitably impinge upon an individual born in a church community or a synagogue community, especially when that individual embarks ona college experience" (Potok 2). American Jews must either take on nonprofessional jobs, assuming an identity...
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