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 In his review, Robert Alter emphasizes the literary value of this unpublished work, and examines what it conveys about its enigmatic author.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.”

Last week, the Lebanese parliament chose Joseph Aoun to be the country’s next president, filling a position that has been vacant since 2022. Aoun, currently commander of the military—and reportedly supported by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia—edged out Suleiman Frangiyeh, Hizballah’s preferred candidate. But while Aoun’s victory is a step in the right direction, David Daoud sounds a cautionary note:

Lebanon’s president lacks the constitutional authority to order Hizballah’s disarmament, and Aoun was elected as another “consensus president” with Hizballah’s votes. They wouldn’t vote for a man who would set in motion a process leading to their disarmament.

Habib Malik agrees that hoping for too much to come out of the election could constitute “daydreaming,” but he nonetheless believes the Lebanese have a chance to win their country back from Hizballah and, ultimately, make peace with Israel:

Lebanon’s 2019 economic collapse and the 2020 massive explosion at the Beirut Port were perpetrated by the ruling mafia, protected ever since by Hizballah. [But] Lebanon’s anti-Iran/Hizballah communities constitute a reliable partner for both the U.S. and Israel. The Lebanese are desperate to be rid of Iranian influence in order to pursue regional peace and prosperity with their neighbors. Suddenly, a unique opportunity for peace breaking out between Israel and Lebanon could be upon us, particularly given President Trump’s recent reelection with a landslide mandate. It was under Trump’s first term that the Abraham Accords came into being and so under his second term they could certainly be expanded.

As matters stand, Lebanon has very few major contentious issues with Israel. The precisely targeted and methodical nature of Israel’s war in Lebanon against Hizballah and what has unfolded in Syria make this outcome a far more attainable goal.