Reuven Malter’s father in The Chosen is named David.
David Malter is a Jewish scholar and teacher who plays a major role in Reuven’s intellectual and religious development. He encourages his son to think seriously, read widely, and respond thoughtfully to difficult questions rather than simply accepting inherited opinions.
His relationship with Reuven contrasts with Danny Saunders’s relationship with his father, Reb Saunders, who leads a Hasidic community. The two fathers represent different forms of Jewish authority and education, and their families’ connections shape the novel’s treatment of tradition and modernity.
David Malter is also involved in broader Jewish communal concerns, including political and religious debates affecting Jews in the United States and Israel. Readers sometimes confuse his name with Reb Saunders, but they are the fathers of the two different boys at the center of the story.