The Promised Land [Hardcover]

Ruhama Veltfort (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 1998

In "The Promised Land," what begins as a search for a better life by a group of Jewish immigrants in the mid 1800s becomes the embodiment of the longing - physical, familial, and spiritual - we all feel for a home. Yitzhak, the renegade son of an Orthodox rabbi in the shtetls of Poland, flees to the New World with his young wife, Chana, to escape religious persecution and suspicion about his powerful charisma and fervent beliefs. Settling with his followers under the patronage of a wealthy family in the mercantile splendor of golden-age St. Louis, Yitzhak is driven by recurring visions to lead his family and his flock on a perilous trek west. It is on this adventure - filled with Indians, settlers, religious zealots, true believers, and all of the dangers and grandeur of the American wilderness - that Yitzhak's faith is tried and Chana's more pragmatic beliefs are tested against both the journey and its surprising resolution.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Veltfort's unusual and affecting first novel chronicles a 19th-century Moses who leads his small tribe of orthodox Jews from the privations and dangers of a Polish shtetl through the rigors of the ocean crossing and a harrowing wagon-train trip across the American continent to California. Here, however, daily hardships are counterpointed by the characters' inner journeys as they try to retain and interpret the faith of their fathers while facing the hostility and antireligious temptations of the modern world. Veltfort has a fine grasp of orthodox Jewish life, scrupulously re-creating the daily routines of the primitive shtetl where narrator Chana is betrothed to peddler Yitzhak Salomon after the itinerant Hasid miraculously cures a sick child. Yitzhak has studied under a famous Hasidic teacher in Cracow, who helps him interpret his recurring dream of Jews fleeing from their flaming homes as a mystical injunction to lead them to the new promised land, America. Even as Yitzhak, Chana and their companions nearly starve, fight off marauders and endure injuries and epidemics, they ponder questions of morality, anguish about issues of ritual observance under alien conditions, question biblical injunctions and suffer the loss of faith as they seek to understand the tragedies that afflict them. The narrative's mixture of earthy detail and magical realism is sometimes a rough one, and poet Veltfort's (Whispers of a Dreamer) prose is awkwardly hyperbolic. Nevertheless, she makes entertaining work of the inherently suspenseful journey along the Oregon Trail, and she brings insight into the emotional and spiritual journey from Old World to New. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In the mid-19th century, Yitzhak and his wife, Chana, the central figures of this first novel, leave Poland with some family and friends to escape religious persecution. They first spend time in St. Louis at the home of meshpucha (almost-relatives) and then travel to California. Their trip is one of tragedy and adventure that tries their faith again and again. Though he was reluctant to become a rabbi in Poland, Yitzhak ends up as the spiritual leader of a ragtag group of seekers. Chana, once shy and retiring, evolves into a strong matriarch. Their westward trek even links them up with the Donner Party. In the end, Yitzhak, like Moses, never reaches his. "promised land," but the group emerges triumphant, achieving an end most readers will expect. How refreshing it would have been to read about characters who don't end up wealthy, but despite the predictable outcome, this novel should prove popular where there is a demand for this genre.?Barbara Maslekoff, Ohioana Lib., Columbus
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions; 1st edition (September 25, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571310223
• ISBN-13: 978-1571310224
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,243,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ruhama Veltfort's poetry and fiction have appeared in Whispering Campaign, The Antrim Review, The Noe Valley Voice, Sound Journal, and Moonfish. You can read her latest poetry collection, Tranlation of Light FREE at http://www.echapbook.com/poems/veltfort/index.html She is alsothe author of two poetry chapbooks, Whispers of a Dreamer (Hollow Reed Press, 1983) and Miles on the Bridge (Wordrunner Chapbooks, 1997), and a novel, The Promised Land (Milkweed Editions, 1998). Her memoir, The Things We Do for Love: Stories of My Life has just been released (June 2010). She lives in San Francisco, California.
www.ruhamaveltfort.com for excerpts, poem of the month, download a free story!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book was absolutely amazing., June 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Promised Land (Hardcover)

Ruhama Veltfort's The Promised Land should be added to the list of Great American Literauture of the 20th Century. As an African-American woman I was expecting (a friend recommended the book to me) to read a "good" novel about a group of people I know little about. I started the novel with an open mind and trust in my friends' choice in literature and finished the novel with a deeper understanding of myself. The depection of the Polish experience and the Jewish culture was sincere, exciting and riveting. I was able to recommend the book to several Jewish acqaintences who validated its authenticity. The development of the characters was powerful and Veltfort's insight into the human mind taught me more about how people can react to situations in fiction as well as in "real" life. I was glued to the book and read it in one sitting. I cannot say enough about Veltfort's mastery of her art.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful combo of earthiness and spirituality, November 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Promised Land (Hardcover)

This is a most beautiful and original book. I have never read one quite like it, but would greatly like to. The narrative line is strong, the characters very real, the places come alive in all their smells and sights, and it is a fine piece of storytelling. One has to say this up front, because this is a book about mysticism, about the experiences and ecstatic knowledge that lie beneath the forms and rules of a religion, and about how a creative spirituality can arise in individuals that leads them to break out of the boundaries of their inherited culture. In other words it is an intellectually serious book. It steers clear of sentimental spiritual claptrap. In the story, terrible things happen to people we have grown to love. But it is neither an `intellectual' book (i.e. inaccessible, hard work to read) nor a grim one. The narrative is strong because we care about these people and they are on a great quest, but also because the earthy details of their lives are as important to the author as their mystical experiences. One of the joys of the book is to look at a familiar scene - the American South and the frontier West - through unfamiliar eyes. E.g. Chana, the leading female character, only slowly understands that the black women with whom she does the chores in a rich Jew's house in St. Louis are slaves. The most terrible thing for these believers is not perhaps the pogroms or the starvation or the Indians, but the dangers inherent in the freedom and prosperity of the new land. "How am I to raise my sons here...?" asks one father. "Here there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, and all are gone to the devil in their crazy pursuit of riches." And the elder son himself says, "I ain't a Jew! ... I don't have to be nothin' I don't want to be. What else are we going West for?" If I have any criticism of the book it is that the ending, which brought tears to my eyes, nonetheless seemed to half-sidestep some of the issues raised about prosperity and keeping the faith. The beautiful spareness of the language of the book, without a wasted word, was too spare for me at the end. But perhaps, then what I really want is the sequel, about the survivors and their granmdchildren, and how they preserve the unity of body and spirit in the dangerously prosperous times in which we live.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exciting page-turner that leaves you feeling full!, November 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Promised Land (Hardcover)

From the first sentence, I was hooked. Without warning, Veltfort deftly drops the reader into a tiny village in 19th Century Poland. This strange landscape, as alien as Dune, is made comfortable by its warm, vibrant characters with their universally human fears, aspirations, and ideals. It was empathy for these odd people, a reluctant Rabbi, his wife, and a few followers, that made it a pleasure to learn their language and religion, and a delight to behold the world through their eyes. There's lots of excitement as this often not-so-merry but always entertaining band struggles to survive the hazardous journey from war-torn Eastern Europe to the still untamed American West. With so much action and adventure to stimulate the imagination, and so much drama to tug the heart, it's easy to forget that how well the book re-awakens your spiritual core with every page. Although this is a story about Orthodox Judaism, with overtones of Jewish mysticism, its messages are transcendent, non-denominational, and full of understanding and love for God. Extremely well written, I literally couldn't put it down while I was reading it, and can't get it out of my head now that I'm done. My only disappointment is that this is a first novel-I can't rush out and get more by the same author.