The Chosen, by Chaim Potok

A very book, that a new friend recently suggested me. It's mostly about friendship, fathers and sons and coming of age, universal themes in this case set in the Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn and in the time from the D-day until shortly after the independence of Israel. The friendship between the boys is beautifully depicted, as is the relationships with the fathers and the conflict between parents' expectations and sons' willingness to please them and the youngsters' desires and hopes. And the Jewish conflicts between the religious conservatives and the less religious and more realistic ones is interesting, depicted at the crucial moment of the Holocaust discovery and the foundation of the State of Israel. Once more, I find it hard to understand how some people can spend their lives and waste their intelligence fussing over lines of the Talmud - it seems really Byzantine. All in all, a very good book.