Chaim Potok Chaim Potok lives a very full life he has served his country, peoples, and religion very well and with great impact. First, to be discussed is his life birth through the present. He was born at a very early age on February 17, 1929, in New York, New York to Benjamin and Mollie Potok. The first university he went to was Yeshiva University where he graduated in 1950 with a B.A., summa cum laude, in English Literature. He also went to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he left with an M.H.L. and a rabbinic ordination in 1954.