While it has long been known that the Prague-born German-language author Franz Kafka at times evinced deep interest in his Jewish heritage—attempting to learn Hebrew and becoming enthralled by the Yiddish theater—much more about his attitudes can be learned from his diaries, which for the first time have been published in English in unexpurgated form. The original expurgation, ironically, was largely the work of Kafka’s close friend and literary executor Max Brod, an ardent Zionist who settled in Tel Aviv in 1939 and later won Israel’s prestigious Bialik literary prize. Andrew Lapin writes:
For an author most famous for his depictions of loneliness, alienation, and unyielding bureaucracy, Kafka often saw in Judaism an opportunity to forge a shared community. “The beautiful strong separations in Judaism,” he [wrote] at one point, in a disjointed style that is a hallmark of his diaries. “One gets space. One sees oneself better; one judges oneself.”
Later, writing about a Yiddish play he found particularly moving, Kafka reflected on its depiction of “people who are Jews in an especially pure form, because they live only in the religion but live in it without effort, understanding, or misery.” He was also involved with several local Zionist organizations, and toward the end of his life fell in love with Dora Diamant, the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi who taught him Hebrew (though she receives scant mention in the diaries).
The author of “The Metamorphosis,” “The Trial,” and “The Castle” was raised by a non-observant father in Prague, and he hated the small amounts of Jewish culture he was exposed to at a young age, including his own bar mitzvah. In addition, the city’s largely assimilated German-speaking Jewish population tended to look down on poorer, Yiddish-speaking East European Jews.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-new-translation-of-franz-kafkas-diaries-restores-much-of-his-jewish-musings/