i
I
I
I
parents' mood was that of Prufrock in whom biolopeal lassitude and cultural satiety had fused. How
paradoxical that their state of mind should be contained in American and Gentile literature. Was this
the final irony of their status? Mr. Shmulewitz and
his tales have spun themselves into daily American
consciousness and have achieved aesthetic fulfillment.
Who has not heard of Fiddler on the Roof, or con^ fessed a fondness for Levy's rye bread, regardless of
race, color, or creed. But my parents' migration and
that of their circle was never completed: it never created its own idiom or form. The immigrants of my
; parents' circle play no literary part in the history of
American migration. They are merely a species of
j universal exile, neither uniquely American, nor exclu:;J sively Jewish.
j Franz kafka's road to zion
; Hannah Koevary
j
!
I
Franz Kafka is internationally known as a brilliant
writer, a tormented son and an anguished lover. But
few people remember him as a struggling Jew and
even fewer know of his Zionism. Kafka's path toward
1
Zionism was a long and arduous one. It was disrupted
* by numerous social and personal forces. His inner life
was filled with anguish and despair; his twisted involvement with women, his ambiguous relationship to
1
his father, his hateful attitude toward his profession
(law), his mistaken conception of Judaism. Without,
1 there was a radical change in the environment in
| which he was brought up. The Jewish community of
^ Prague was slowly crumbling. The young Jews who
emerged from the Prague Ghetto could no longer
accept the values and lifestyle of their parents and
grandparents. Kafka joined these other questioning
Jews (some of whom became prominent Jewish personalities) who perceived the "old Judaism" as nothing
more than meaningless values clothed in anachronistic
ritual.
For Kafka the search for meaning always had two
dimensions. His personal private struggle ran a parallel
course to the troubled emergence of his Jewish consciousness. Together they formed the exceptional
emotional burdens he carried. Perhaps for most of
Kafka's friends the resolution came easier. Most discovered the solution to their Jewish questions in the
national struggle of the Jewish people known as
' Zionism. In his youth this did not satisfy Kafka. He
, saw Zionism as a political movement, an ideology. But
Kafka was far disenchanted with all movements-and
184
ideologies. He was a man helplessly looking for a
pure and simple life and the Zionist Movement only
provided him with ambiguities. Only later when he
discovered the Messianic dimension in Zionism could
he accept it.
Still despite his early difficulties Kafka was always
sympathetic to Zionism. As he wrote already in 1911,
"the possibilities for a solution stand so clearly marshalled about the Jewish problem that the writer
would have had to take only a few last steps in order
to find the possibility of a solution."
The awakening of kafka's collective soul
One of the turning points in Kafka's life occurred one
night at a theatre in Prague. There he discovered the
Eastern European Yiddish Actors Troupe. But they
were more to him than a mere group of actors. Never
before had Kafka met such pure, authentic Jews.
Their community attachment and camaraderie
attracted Kafka very much. Their simplicity and
wholeness sent him back to his heritage. For the
first time Kafka became aware of his dormant nationalistic feelings. Thus, the Eastern European
Jewish community became the catalyst for the
awakening in Kafka of his Jewish collective soul. He
began studying Jewish history, attending Zionist
lectures, meeting Zionist organizers, and reading
Zionist publications. Nonetheless, being Kafka, he
remained somewhat alienated from the movement
until another encounter proved momentous. This time
it was with a woman, Milena Janeska.
Milena was a Czech Christian and she, for the first
time in his life, confronted Kafka directly with his
Jewishness, and especially his ideas about Zionism.
It was this relationship that caused Kafka to feel that
the liberation of the Jewish people had to be linked
with the acquisition of a land. Perhaps because he was
so directly challenged his ideas on Zionism crystallized. Thus, when Kafka's relationship with Milena
ended, his romance with Zionism took a more intense
turn, this time on the Baltic Sea.
One day while visiting his sister, Kafka came across
the summer colony of the Berlin Jewish People's
Home. One of the workers there was a young, attractive, dark haired woman, by the name of Dora
Diamant. She came from a Hasidic home in Warsaw
and they soon became close. Their romance had a
special educational dimension: she learned from him
about literature, he learned from her about Hebrew,
Jewish customs, history and the Hasidic lifestyle. In
due course they moved together into an apartment in
Berlin. For the first time, Kafka found personal ful-
fillment. He had left his despised, boring job and
began writing and living. The broken pieces were beginning to come together and a new person emerged.
As he found a resolution to his personal conflicts, so
too did he begin to find one to his Jewish struggle.
Franz and Dora both attended the Hochschule fur
die Wissenschaft des Judentums. Kafka made remarkable progress in Hebrew and began studying the Bible
with Rashi. Moreover, he began to involve himself
and Dora in greater Zionist activity. All this was in
preparation for his final plan and the ultimate resolution: the marriage to Dora and their moving to
Palestine. Each of these events was to consummate
a major battle in Kafka's life. But before he could
fulfill either of them, his illness overtook him, and
he died.
Paradise found through zion
As we look at the last year of his life, we see it brought
Kafka liberation of the spirit and soul, even of the
body — he spoke often of physical labor, of .vegetarianism, of carpentry, of an end to physical illness. Moreover all his concerns came together. His Jewishness was
fully realized through the binding of his life with a
woman whose roots stemmed from the same place as
that of his first intense encounter with authentic
Jewishness, Eastern Europe. Dora Diamant enabled
Kafka to liberate himself and bring to the surface his
long suppressed desires, to live a full Jewish existence,
realizing itself in the Jewish homeland.
Still Kafka's Zionism was not a dues-paying cardcarrying Zionism. Rather, it was a personal Zionism
founded on three symbolic places: Prague, Warsaw,
Eden/Paradise. Prague, for Kafka meant a life of exile
and isolation. And because he lived on the brink of the
abyss, on the very edge of desperation he yearned for
redemption. In Warsaw, he touched something of the
new Judaism he sought, for there he found refuge of
the spirit in the purity of its Jewishness.
His Zionism then, was a new Zionism. Kafka being no
lover of abstraction sought concretion, resolution. An
idea implied an image, -a concept meant a calL Somewhere he believed there has to be that true superior
life that is ordinarily accessible only through death or
the Messiah. And it was this search for Paradise/Eden
that led him toward Zion. Yet in his journey to Paradise he never forgot he was the Franz Kafka of Prague
and the Franz Kafka of Warsaw. For him, then, Zionism
in the land meant liberation more than liberty, a return
to the roots contained in the soil of the land and in
the soul of the settler.
Kafka never entered the Land. Yet despite his difficulties with aspects of the Zionist movement he did not
allow them to turn him aside from Zionism. He had
decided to make aliyah. Perhaps he had finally understood that his criticisms of Zionism had to be made
from the cafes of Tel Aviv and not from those of
Europe.
IT'S NOT TOO LATE FOR GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS.
But do hurry your recipients' names and addresses
(with zip) plus a check for S6.00 each (for one year's j
issues) to us at Box 567, Port Washington, N.Y. 11050. j
MAKING CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS at year's |
end? Sh 'ma's deficit puts us in the class of the needy
and the I.R.S. accounts us as deductible. We welcome i
your succor: Box 56 7, Port Washington, N.Y. 11050.
I
JULIA HIRSCH teaches English at Brooklyn
College.
it;;
185