On the Hebrew calendar, Friday was the 100th anniversary of the death of Franz Kafka. David Herman reviews a new exhibit on the Prague-born writer at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, which is “the largest exhibition of Kafka’s manuscripts and drawings ever shown.”

Some of the letters are fascinating. . . . His Hebrew notebook, glossary, and his letter (in Hebrew) to his teacher demonstrate his dedication to learning the language that connected him to his family roots. And there is the note to his friend Max Brod in which he famously instructs him to burn all his unpublished manuscripts.

Kafka’s family was not especially religious, but he was deeply interested in many different aspects of Jewishness: the new Zionist movement, Judaism, and Yiddish theatre. In the winter of 1911–12, a troupe of actors from Lemberg (then the capital of Galicia) visited Prague to perform plays in Yiddish. Kafka attended some twenty of the performances and the experience introduced him to the very different Jewish culture of Eastern Europe, which seemed more alive, part of a living tradition.

The Hebrew writer S.Y. Agnon was born just a few years after Kafka in a shtetl not far from Lemberg, and deeply immersed in that living tradition. Jeffrey Saks writes:

Many readers and scholars have woven webs of connections between the two writers, a fact that endlessly agitated Agnon, leading him to state in 1962: “What is said about me and Kafka is a mistake. Before I published my Book of Deeds I knew nothing of Kafka’s stories except for his Metamorphosis, and even now, except for The Trial, . . . I have not taken a Kafka book in hand. . . . Kafka is not of my soul’s root, and whatever is not of my soul’s root I do not absorb.”

Despite Agnon’s warning, Saks weaves a new connection between the two writers: just a day after Kafka’s death, a fire broke out at Agnon’s house in Germany, destroying his collection of (he claimed) 4,000 Hebrew books and several of his own unpublished manuscripts, including a 700-page novel. In other words, Kafka’s wish for his oeuvre was visited on Agnon’s. This is an eerie coincidence worthy of one of the Hebrew writer’s own stories, if not one of Kafka’s.

“Make no mistake,” said President Biden after the news broke of the murder of six hostages in Gaza, “Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.” While this sentiment is correct, especially given that an American citizen was among the dead, the White House has thus far shown little inclination to act upon it. The editors of National Review remark:

Hamas’s execution of [Hersh Goldberg-Polin] should not be treated as merely an issue of concern for Israel but as a brazen act against the United States. It would send a terrible signal if the response from the Biden-Harris administration were to move closer to Hamas’s position in cease-fire negotiations. Instead, Biden must follow through on his declaration that Hamas will pay.

Richard Goldberg lays out ten steps the U.S. can take, none of which involve military action. Among them:

The Department of Justice should move forward with indictments of known individuals and groups in the United States providing material support to Hamas and those associated with Hamas, domestically and abroad. The Departments of the Treasury and State should also target Hamas’s support network of terrorist entities in and out of the Gaza Strip. . . . Palestinian organizations that provide material support to Hamas and coordinate attacks with them should be held accountable for their actions. Hamas networks in foreign countries, including South Africa, should be targeted with sanctions as well.

Pressure on Qatar should include threats to remove Qatar’s status as a major non-NATO ally; move Al Udeid air-base assets; impose sanctions on Qatari officials, instrumentalities, and assets; and impose sanctions on Qatar’s Al-Jazeera media network. Qatar should be compelled to close all Hamas offices and operations, freeze and turn over to the United States all Hamas-connected assets, and turn over to the United States or Israel all Hamas officials who remain in the country.