[Bananafish] RE: bananafish Digest, Vol 22, Issue 2

[Michael J ANELLO]

I know that McBurney is no longer, and that it is a YMCA now.  But, YMCA
didn't run McBurney back then, did it?

-Mike

>>> "kenny2 at verizon.net" <kenny2 at verizon.net> 5/3/2006 10:23 AM >>>


I hate to blow a hole in all this delicious speculation, but the truth
of
the matter is far more sane. Salinger's "Irish-Catholic" mother was
actually born in Iowa and she never "pretended" to be Jewish. When she
eloped with Sol, her own parents disowned her. On the other hand, the
Salingers embraced her, so she converted both out of gratitude and to
ease
her position into the family (now her only family). Salinger was
well-aware
that his mother was Catholic. He celebrated Christmas as a child.
After
all, he went straight from his Bar Mitzvah to McBurney - run by the
YMCA.
Such things were the norm. if anyone in the family struggled with
their
heritage it was Soloman. His ambition often clashed with his
traditions.
Something tells me that Jerome was far too insightful not to notice.
Salinger's own attraction to Catholicism seems to have come from
Sylvia.
Before that we know that he lived in the Jewish Ghetto in Vienna and
escaped the German invasion by all of two weeks. Those he lived with
were
murdered at Mauthausen. And yet, Salinger granted a certain humanity to
a
Gestapo officer in his story re-telling those events. And I think
that's
the point. Salinger is against labels. Labels only serve to
disassociate us
from guilt in which we rightfully share. Us and them. Isn't it all "us"
to
Salinger? And that's all you've been doing for the past two days,
labeling
things that should never be labeled. 


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