Fic­tion

The Rise of David Levinsky

Abra­ham Cahan
  • From the Publisher
March 21, 2013
The Rise of David Levin­sky, writ­ten by the leg­endary founder and edi­tor of the Jew­ish Dai­ly For­ward, is an ear­ly Jew­ish-Amer­i­can clas­sic. Accord­ing to the schol­ar Sam B. Gir­gus, The nov­el is more than an impor­tant lit­er­ary work and cul­tur­al doc­u­ment. It forms part of the tra­di­tion­al rit­u­al of renew­al of the Amer­i­can Way.” First pub­lished in 1917, Abra­ham Cahan’s real­is­tic nov­el tells the sto­ry of a young tal­mu­dic schol­ar who emi­grates from a small town in Rus­sia to the melt­ing pot of turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry New York City. As the Jew­ish green­horn” ris­es from the depths of pover­ty to become a mil­lion­aire gar­ment mer­chant, he dis­cov­ers the unbear­ably high price of assimilation.

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