The Rise Of David Levinsky

A young Hasidic Jew struggling to master the Talmud seeks his fortune amid the teeming streets of New York's Lower East Side. The energy formerly focused on his religious studies now turns in the direction of rising to the top of the business world, where he discovers the high price of assimilation.

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Acclaimed by literary critic Carl Van Doren as "the most important of all immigrant novels," The Rise of David Levinsky takes place amid America's biggest and most diverse Yiddish-speaking community during the early twentieth century. David Levinsky, a young Hasidic Jew struggling to master the Talmud, seeks his fortune amid the teeming streets of New York's Lower East Side. All the energy formerly focused on his religious studies now turns in the direction of rising to the top of the business world, where he discovers the high price of assimilation. Author Abraham Cahan founded and edited the Jewish Daily Forward,the world's most widely read Yiddish paper, and his direct experience contributes mightily to the authenticity of this monumental work.

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Sometimes- when I think of my past in a superficial casual way the metamorphosis I have gone through strikes me as nothing short of a miracle.' (Excerpt from Chapter 1)

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It is with a peculiar sense of duality one reads this ancient work. While your mind is absorbed in the meaning of the words you utter, the melody in which you utter them tells your heart a tale of its own. You live in two distinct worlds at once. Naphtali had little to say to other people, but he seemed to have much to say to himself. His singsongs were full of meaning, of passion, of beauty. Quite often he would sing himself hoarse.

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One of Abraham Cahan?s most famous works brings late 19th century Russia to life in this fictional autobiography. David Levinsky tells the story of a young man who grows up in poverty after the death of his father, becomes a Talmudic scholar, and, after the loss of his mother, begins to consider emigration to America. In 1980 this riveting story was adapted into a musical.