The Chosen

The Chosen is a novel by the American writer Chaim Potok, first published in 1967. It follows the narrator, Reuven Malter, and his friend Danny Saunders as they grow up in the Williamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York, in the 1940s.

Reuven Malter is fifteen in 1944 when he plays for his own Modern Orthodox school against a team from a Hasidic yeshiva, and it becomes clear during the game that the only strong player on the other side is Danny Saunders, the son of the rebbe. What begins as a contest between two teams turns into something closer to a war between two sets of beliefs, and in the last inning Danny hits a line drive straight at Reuven's head, breaking his glasses and driving a fragment of glass into his eye. Reuven's team loses and he is taken to hospital, and Danny's visit to him afterwards is the beginning of a friendship that lasts for years. The novel follows the two of them as they grow up, setting their friendship against what their fathers and their communities expect of them, with Reuven narrating the whole account.

Potok wrote a sequel about Reuven's young adult years, The Promise, which was published in 1969.