The Promised Land

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.

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.

In early-nineteenth-century Poland, Chana has grown up wild and unloved, rootless even while she makes her home with a caring Jewish family. At 15, Yitzhak leaves home to explore his faith, chancing to end up in the tiny village where Chana lives. They meet, they marry, and they begin a difficult journey of spirit and flesh that comes to a close in the American West. Hardship and poverty are their earthly lot; religion is the reason they carry on. Although jarring at first, Veltfort's use of alternating first-and third-person perspectives beautifully underscores how differently Chana and Yitzhak experience their world: Chana is bound to the earth, while Yitzhak lives through his religion. Although the story is extraordinarily bleak, its language occasionally soars, the images and details are strong, and the questions Veltfort raises about the nature and purpose of religion will linger long after the characters' arduous journey comes to a close. A memorable first novel. Stephanie Zvirin

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.