[The Chosen] is a deeply considered exegesis of modern Judaism. Formally, it should be ticketed as an allegory. The plot is simple and slight, though strong and graceful: the plot carries the deadly weight of the argument through seas almost too stormy for the mind to bear. The style has a solo quality, in the sense that Charles A. Lindbergh flew alone across the Atlantic, every second in peril of death. The style is beautifully quiet and gentle. One is amazed that so frail a structure can make it into port with such a freight of grief. It does so, heroically.

The story is set in the Williamsburg district of Brooklyn in the 1940s, the moment before the full horror of Hitlerism bursts upon the 20th century. There are only four characters to reckon with, two fathers and two sons. One father is a Hasid whose son will...