First published
1972

Summary
Asher Lev is the son of Aryeh and Rivkeh Lev. They are religious Jews who live in Brooklyn. Asher?s father is important in the Jewish community because he works for the Rebbe and travels all over the world. His mother stays at home to take care of Asher. Asher likes to draw. When Rivkeh?s brother dies, she gets sick. Asher?s father stays home; he doesn?t travel anymore. Sometime later when his mother gets better; she decides to finish her brother?s work. She starts to study a lot about Russia.
In the mean time Asher goes to a Jewish school. He doesn?t like to go to school, because he can?t draw there and he doesn?t have any friends there. Asher?s father loves to travel and when the Rebbe asks him to go to Vienna he would like to go. He is supposed to help to settle a Jewish community and school there. Asher doesn?t want to go and because of that his mother stays with him in Brooklyn. Although Asher likes to draw, he didn?t do it for a while. When his father leaves he starts drawing again. He knows that his father doesn?t like it when he draws.
Asher gets in trouble because of his passion for drawing. His father is worried about him, because school isn?t going well. The Rebbe knows that drawing is very important to Asher and he decides that Asher has to meet with Jacob Kahn. Jacob is a Jewish artist, but he isn?t a religious Jew. The first thing Asher has to do before his first lesson with Jacob is to watch the Guernica by Picasso and to read the goyim bible. Asher doesn?t like to read the Goyim bible because it feels like he is entering the Other Side.

When his mother is going to Vienna too, because his father is very lonely; Asher stays at his uncle?s house. The summers he spends with Jacob. In the same time he meets Anna Schaeffer, she owns a gallery. She wants to exhibit his paintings. His first exhibition is a great success, but his parents don?t show up, because he exhibits nudes in it.
When he has finished college he wants to travel Europe, he stays for a year or two in Paris where he paints a lot. He paints two crucifixions there. In Anna?s gallery in New York he has a big exhibition where a lot of people show up, including his parents. He exhibits the two crucifixions and his mother is on it. All the Jewish people and his parents are shocked and the Rebbe tells him it is better for all of them if he leaves to Paris.

Theme
A boy who is growing up in an orthodox-Jewish community and in that community he finds difficulties in uniting his two passions, his religion and his art. In the Jewish community there is no place for individual wishes. Asher wants to be part of the community and he wants to go his own way, he tries to find a way to unite these two things. It doesn?t work and he hurts the people who he loves with his art.

Character
Asher Lev: Besides that Asher is a good drawer he is very stubborn too. He is selfish, but on the other hand he feels responsible, like for his mother?s health. Asher wants to stay a religious Jew but he wants to draw too. He can?t choose between these two and that makes it very difficult for him. In the beginning Asher doesn?t know what he is doing, but in the end he knows that he can hurt people with his drawings. It looks like he wants to hurt people, but it seems more like it is his fate and he is forced to do it. On one hand he is social, but on the other hand he is a loner. He loves his parents and because of that he hurts himself too
Rivkeh Lev: She is Asher?s mother. She loves him and wants to help him. She feels responsible to finish her brother?s work and she works really hard for it. Her love for her son and her husband tears her apart. She worries every time about her husband when he is away. Asher sees that like his mother is always suffering.
Aryeh Lev: Asher?s father loves his son, but he is very disappointed when his own son doesn?t want to become a reb. It is really hard for him to see that his son ambition is art, something Aryeh thinks is for kids. Aryeh is strict in education and religion. His work for the Rebbe is important to him, because he is doing things for the Jewish community.

Opinion

I liked this book a lot. I didn?t read books before about Jewish people and art. I know that there is another book about Asher Lev and I would like to read that too, to see what has happened to him. I learned some things about Jewish people and I recognised some things from my stay in Israel. After our cultureproject about Christianity I knew better why it was so awful that he painted a crucifixion. So I realised that I could unite al lot of things that I have learned in the past. The way the book was written is very good, I think, because it is told in the direct mode (ikvorm). The descriptions about the way Asher is painting were very clear, I could almost see him painting in front of my eyes.