The diaries of the Prague-born novelist and short-story writer Franz Kafka have recently been published in English in their complete and unexpurgated form. In his review, Robert Alter emphasizes the literary value of this unpublished work, and examines what it conveys about its enigmatic author. There are, for instance, Kafka’s neurotic tendencies:

Even a hypochondriac can fall ill, and long before the onset of the tuberculosis that would end his life at the age of forty, he was constantly listening to his body, finely tuned in to pick up any sign of breakdown. He was assailed by everyday complaints: headaches, chills, digestive ailments, severe insomnia. Since Kafka was an original, even his kvetching shows a certain originality of perception: “How far from me, for example, my arm muscles are.”

And there is much to be learned about this secular German-language writer’s deep sense of connection to Judaism:

Kafka was a master of ambivalence. The three principal topics of ambivalence in the diaries are Judaism and Jewish culture, the institution of marriage, and sex. It may surprise some that of the three, the subject on which he was least ambivalent was Judaism. Raised in a thoroughly secular German-speaking home, he intermittently saw Jewish religion and culture as offering an authenticity of which he had been deprived by his upbringing. He reports being deeply moved at a Kol Nidre service, though, unlike [the German Jewish philosopher] Franz Rosenzweig’s parallel experience, it was not part of a personal transformation. He read [the 19th-century scholar Heinrich] Graetz’s history of the Jews and a history of Yiddish literature and repeatedly flirted with Zionism, at one point even briefly contemplating the possibility of immigrating to Palestine.

Kafka’s ambivalence about his “ponderous Judaism” is the consequence of an insoluble dilemma of identities. He could scarcely think of himself as Czech, and though German was his primary language, he would never have imagined himself in any sense as German. The mixed messages about Judaism he got from his parents left him in a state of confusion. Jewish peoplehood, embodied in the Jews from Eastern Europe, exerted a strong pull.

In [one diary passage], he writes, “The people remain, of course, and I cling to them.” Perhaps we should think of this as someone clinging to a life raft—he clings but he can’t get on the boat. The flip side of his attraction to Jewish peoplehood comes out in a succinct entry later in the diary that has often been quoted, for good reason: “What do I have in common with Jews? I have scarcely anything in common with myself and should stand completely silent in a corner, content that I can breathe.”

Before exploding electronics in Lebanon seized the attention of the Israeli public, debate there had focused on the Philadelphi Corridor—the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt—and whether the IDF can afford to withdraw from it. Egypt has opposed Israeli control of the corridor, which is crucial to Hamas’s supply lines, and Egyptian objections likely prevented Israel from seizing it earlier in the war. Yet, argues Mariam Wahba, Egypt in the long run only stands to lose by letting Hamas use the corridor, and has proved incapable of effectively sealing it off:

Ultimately, this moment presents an opportunity for the United States to hold Egypt’s feet to the fire.

To press Cairo, the United States should consider conditioning future aid on Cairo’s willingness to cooperate. This should include a demand for greater transparency and independent oversight to verify Egyptian claims about the tunnels. Congress ought to hold hearings to understand better Egypt’s role and its compliance as a U.S. ally. Despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s nine trips to the Middle East since the start of the war, there has been little clarity on how Egypt intends to fulfill its role as a mediator.

By refusing to acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security concerns, Egypt is undermining its own interests, prolonging the war in Gaza, and further destabilizing its relationship with Jerusalem. It is time for Egyptian leaders either to admit their inability to secure the border and seek help from Israel and America, or to risk being perceived as enablers of Hamas and its terrorist campaign.