Potok's deep acculturation in Judaism animates his life-affirming belief in the individual, in society, in the human quest for meaning, and in the magnificently human capacity for selfsacrifice. Like many American Jewish writers, he refuses to espouse the popular modernist philosophy of alienation. He embraces instead a vision of the enduring, the generous, and the good in humankind.

His novels excel at depicting numerous Jewish customs and beliefs: family psychology, religious ritual and scholarship, the role of the male, the "place" of the woman, the influence of the Jewish European heritage, reactions to the Holocaust, attitudes toward Zionism, and the impact of materialistic America upon the Orthodox Jewish family. Above all, he provides a universally relevant account of the young adult's age-old quest for self-identity forged from the inevitable clash between personal impetus and parental injunction.

Central to an understanding of this clash is...