J.D. Salinger: Author, recluse, and icon - but was he Jewish?
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said.
By The Jewish Journal Tags: Jewish World Israel newsAuthor J.D. Salinger died at 91. He was best known for writing, "The Catcher in the Rye."
According to the Associated Press:
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.
But was Salinger Jewish?
Read the entire article at www.jewishjournal.com
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What an irrelevance. As if that's what matters when a literary giant passes away.
Why this obsessions with knowing whether he was Jewish or not? The only thing that matters is that he was a human being. There is no differnece in blood or anything between Jews/Christians/Muslims/Budhists/Hiduists... we're all the same.
According to the article in Jewish journal his mother was catholic. So as one can only be counted as a Jew if your mum is one he was not. The same article states he was Bar- Mitzvad. Under strict orthodox law as his mother was not Jewish this would not be allowed. As I'm not familiar with what goes on in the US various Jewish sects this leaves a question mark. What is important is if he saw himself as Jewish. I should imagine from his writings mundane things like religion, and tribal inheritance, for that is what being this or that is. Would not have been important to him. He was a man who with one book changed a whole generation, and ultimately history.
After reading Catcher In the Rye, I felt like killing John Lennon :)
Rabbi Tropper can fix it.
is it really that important? whether he was jewish or not, he was a great author. we should stop diluting everything with identity politics.