News

The not so heimish hero

November 3, 2011 11:58

By

Simon Rocker,

Simon Rocker

1 min read

Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22, 50 years old this year, is regarded as an American-Jewish classic. But would its hero Captain Yossarian have been able to make up a minyan?

In a letter being auctioned next week in California, Heller revealed the truth. "Yossarian isn't Jewish and was not intended to be," he wrote, though adding: "On the other hand, no effort was expended to make him anything else."

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