Kafka Knew Much More Hebrew than Previously Realized

Last week saw the long-awaited release by the National Library in Jerusalem of that part of Franz Kafka’s literary estate, the whole of which had been willed by him to his friend Max Brod, to have survived the illegal sale of many of its manuscripts by Brod’s secretary Esther Hoffe after Brod’s death. The disposition of what remained was subject to a protracted court case between Hoffe’s daughter and the state of Israel that in 2016 was finally decided in Israel’s favor. This material has now been made available to the public, and a few samples from it have been posted on the Internet.

The most interesting of these samples bear on Kafka’s study and knowledge of Hebrew. It has never been a secret that Kafka, in the years before his early death from tuberculosis in 1924, took up the study of Hebrew, in part because of his interest in Jewish culture and in part because, as a convert to Zionism, he had thoughts of settling in Palestine. Yet in the ongoing debate between literary critics over how “Jewish” a writer Kafka really was, the skeptics have argued that his Zionism was a whim, his interest in Hebrew superficial, and his plans for Palestine a dying man’s fantasies.

Enough has already been known about Kafka’s interest in Hebrew to rebut this argument. Now, however, with the baring of previously unknown Hebrew notebooks and letters, the proficiency achieved by him in the language has become clearer. Imperfect though it was, it turns out to have been striking.