Saul Bellow was in no sense whatever a Jewish pope but I suspect that his
death is felt in a special way by every Jew who reads.  This is doubly
interesting because Bellow famously didn't want to be thought of as a
Jewish writer.  But what constitutes that "special way"?   In my own case
it's partly because Moses Herzog, perhaps even more than Malamud's Arthur
Fidelman, comes closest to being the most Jewish character in all of
English literature.  But it's also because of the way his moral and
intellectual careers threaded their ways through, past and around so many
fixed poles.  Like it or not, he was a Jewish Everyman; and while I never
looked up to him I always looked to him (and Malamud) for signs of how
things were.

Norman Miller