This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Chaim Potok's coming-of-age classic about two Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940s, and includes a new introduction, critical essays, rare papers and photos, and much more. It's the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they've never met, not until the day an accident during a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys--one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe, the other at ease with secular America--are drawn into one another's worlds despite one father's strong opposition. Set against the backdrop of WWII and the creation of the state of Israel, The Chosen is a poignant novel about transformation and tradition, growing up and growing wise, and finding yourself--even if that might mean leaving your community.