The Chosen

The Chosen begins in the mid-1940s, situating it near the conclusion of World War II. As Malter tells Reuven, “It is the beginning of the end for Hitler and his madmen” (91). “Hitler” is Adolf Hitler, and “his madmen” are Nazis (members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party). Hitler was the totalitarian leader of the Nazis and, eventually, Germany. After annexing countries like Austria and Czechoslovakia without force, he invaded Poland in 1939, launching World War II. Hitler took advantage of a world still recovering from the deadly World War I, and Nazi Germany quickly occupied other European countries, including France. Hitler wanted to conquer much of the world and create an empire that would last a thousand years. Hitler failed, and Reuven follows the Allies as they push back Hitler’s overextended, mismanaged army.

In addition to starting another world war, the Nazis launched several genocides, systematically killing political opponents, Roma, people with physical and mental conditions, and Jews. The Nazis labeled these groups subhuman, and Hitler didn’t want them contaminating the superior race of humans (Aryans) he hoped to build. Mass executions, inhumane ghettos, and horrid concentration camps with gas chambers enabled the genocides. In the largest concentration camp, Auschwitz, Reb Saunders’s nonobservant brother dies in a gas chamber. The genocides killed six million Jews and five million people from other groups. People now refer to the genocides as the Holocaust—a Greek word that means “burnt offering” or sacrifice, a reference to the cremation or burning of dead bodies in the camps. The term is somewhat controversial, implying that the people died in a way that honored God.

The book presents the founding of Israel through the differences between Jews. Reb Saunders and the Hasids think the Holocaust was God’s will, and it doesn’t mean they should abandon the Torah and build a homeland before the Messiah arrives. David Malter and the less strict Jews believe they can’t wait for the Messiah to arrive. They must create Israel to rebuild Jewry and protect it from further persecution. The book notes the violence between Arabs, Zionists, and England (the country with nominal control over the area), but it doesn’t detail the upheaval that occurred when the Jews returned to form a homeland in a region they had inhabited 3,000 years before. The adoption of United Nations Resolution 181 resulted in the creation of a Jewish and a Palestinian state in May 1948. The Arabs rejected the creation of Israel, and immediately afterward, a war broke out, with Israel being attacked by Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq. In subsequent decades, there have been several wars but also peace treaties resulting in the normalization of relations between various Arab countries and Israel.

Today, the region remains violent. Some scholars argue that Israeli policies toward Palestinians are tantamount to genocide. Others view Israel’s actions as the defense of a country under siege, emphasizing that certain groups, such as Hamas, and some countries, like Iran, want Israel to be eliminated. In October 2023, after a surprise attack from Hamas in Gaza resulted in the killing and kidnapping of hundreds of Israelis, including women and children, Israel declared war on Hamas, the extremist group that governs the Palestinians in Gaza.