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A new translation of Franz Kafka’s diaries restores much of his Jewish musings
(JTA) – Franz Kafka was a devotee of Yiddish theater, fell in love with his Hebrew teacher and once encountered the owner of a brothel he frequented in synagogue on Yom Kippur.
The broad strokes of Kafka’s biography have long been known to historians, but a new English translation of the Czech author’s complete and unabridged diaries gives readers the fullest possible picture of his complex, contradictory relationship with Judaism. 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 praises at one point, in a disjointed style that is a hallmark of his diaries. “One gets space. One sees oneself better, one judges oneself better.”
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 Diaries of Franz Kafka,” translated by Ross Benjamin and out this week from Penguin Random House, collects every entry of the writer’s personal diaries covering the period from 1908 until 1923, the year before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 41.
Although versions of Kafka’s diaries had previously been published thanks to the efforts of his Jewish friend and literary executor Max Brod (with translation assistance from Hannah Arendt), they had been heavily doctored with many passages expunged, including some of what Kafka had written about his own understanding of Judaism. A German-language edition of the unabridged diaries was published in 1990.
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 Eastern European Jews.
But Kafka’s diaries also reveal a growing fascination with Jewish culture in young adulthood, particularly around a traveling Yiddish theater troupe from Poland whom he saw perform nearly two dozen times. He developed a close relationship with the company’s lead actor, Jizchak Löwy, and would host recitation events where he’d give Löwy the opportunity to perform stories of Jewish life in Warsaw.
Kafka himself would even write and deliver an introduction to these performances in Yiddish. He would also witness his own father harboring prejudices towards his new friend Löwy: “My father about him: He who lies down in bed with dogs gets up with bugs.”
“The Metamorphosis” famously revolves around a man who inexplicably is transformed into a bug and then is rejected harshly by his family. In his introduction, Benjamin notes, “Scholars have suggested that such tropes, prevalent as they were in the antisemitic culture in which Kafka reckoned with his own Jewishness, influenced the themes of his fiction.”
Some of Kafka’s more ambiguous comments about his Jewish brethren were previously removed by Brod, according to Benjamin’s introduction to the diaries. At one point while hanging out with Löwy, Kafka invokes antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish uncleanliness: “My hair touched his when I leaned toward his head, I grew frightened due to at least the possibility of lice.” Benjamin notes: “Here Kafka confronts his own Western European Jewish anxiety about the hygiene of his Eastern European Jewish companion.”
Other revelations in the unexpurgated diaries include Kafka’s musings about his own sexuality.
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Pope Leo Says Those Who Wage War Are Thieves Stealing Away Our Peaceful Future
Pope Leo XIV looks on as he meets with Catholic religious education teachers attending a national meeting organised by the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, April 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Pope Leo on Sunday described those who wage wars and appropriate the earth’s resources as thieves who rob the world of a peaceful future, issuing a warning about the use of nuclear power on the anniversary of the Chernobyl reactor accident.
Ukraine is commemorating the 40th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster on Sunday amid lingering fears that Russia’s four-year-old war could spark a repeat of the tragedy.
In his weekly address after the Angelus prayer, the Pontiff said the Chernobyl accident had left a mark on humankind’s collective conscience.
“It remains a warning over the use of ever more powerful technologies,” the Pope, who has just returned from a 10-day tour across four African nations, said.
“I hope that at all decision-making levels, wisdom and responsibility always prevail, so that atomic power can always be used to support life and peace,” he added.
Commenting on the Gospel of the day, which contained the metaphor of a sheep thief, Pope Leo said thieves came under many appearances, listing as examples “superficial lifestyles driven by consumerism,” prejudices and wrong ideas.
“And let’s not forget also those thieves who, by plundering the earth’s resources, by fighting bloody wars or feeding evil in whichever form, are simply taking away from all of us the chance of a future of peace and serenity,” he added.
Leo, the first US pontiff, has attracted the ire of President Donald Trump after becoming more outspoken against war and despotism.
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UK’s Starmer and Trump Discuss ‘Urgent Need’ to Restore Shipping in Strait of Hormuz
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) hold a bilateral meeting at Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump discussed the urgent need to get shipping moving again in the Strait of Hormuz during a call on Sunday, a Downing Street spokesperson said.
“The leaders discussed the urgent need to get shipping moving again in the Strait of Hormuz, given the severe consequences for the global economy and cost of living for people in the UK and globally,” the spokesperson for Starmer’s office said in a statement.
“The prime minister shared the latest progress on his joint initiative with President (Emmanuel) Macron to restore freedom of navigation,” the spokesperson added.
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Palestinian Leader’s Loyalists Win Local Elections, Including Some Seats in Gaza
A Palestinian man votes during the municipal election at a polling station in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip April 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas won most races in Palestinian municipal elections, election officials said on Sunday, in a vote that for the first time in nearly two decades included a city in the Gaza Strip run by rival Hamas.
Saturday’s ballot marked the first elections of any kind in Gaza since 2006 and the first Palestinian polls since the Gaza war began more than two years ago with Hamas’ cross‑border attack on southern Israel.
Abbas’ West Bank–based Palestinian Authority (PA) said the inclusion of the Gaza city Deir al‑Balah, which suffered less damage than other areas of the coastal territory during the war, was intended to show that Gaza was an inseparable part of a future Palestinian state.
The elections, in which voter turnout was low, had been held “at a highly sensitive moment amid complex challenges and exceptional circumstances,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said as results were announced on Sunday.
But they represented “an important first step in a broader national process aimed at strengthening democratic life … and ultimately achieving the unity of the homeland,” he said.
POSSIBLE INDICATOR OF HAMAS SUPPORT
Hamas, which ousted the PA from Gaza in 2007, did not formally nominate candidates in Gaza and boycotted the race in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Fatah’s victory was widely expected.
But some candidates on one of the Deir al-Balah lists were widely seen by residents and analysts as aligned with the movement, making the vote a potential indicator of support for the Islamist group.
Preliminary results showed that the list, known as Deir al‑Balah Brings Us Together, won only two of the 15 seats contested in Gaza.
The Nahdat Deir al‑Balah list, backed by Abbas’ Fatah party and the Western-backed PA, secured six seats. The remaining seats were won by two other Gaza-based groups, Future of Deir al‑Balah and Peace and Building, not affiliated with either faction.
Abbas loyalists swept the election in the West Bank, running unchallenged in many seats.
Fatah spokesperson Abdul Fattah Dawla noted that turnout was close to that for the last municipal elections in the West Bank, in 2022, praising voters for participating despite ongoing violence by Israel.
“By electing figures linked to Fatah, voters appear to be seeking unrestricted international support for municipal governance and a gradual political shift that could extend beyond the local level,” said Palestinian political analyst Reham Ouda.
The recent war has left much of Gaza reduced to rubble, with many residents displaced and focused on survival. Israel has continued conducting strikes despite an October ceasefire.
In Gaza, voter turnout reached just 23 percent, while in the West Bank it was 56 percent, according to Chairman of the Central Elections Commission Rami al‑Hamdallah.
Al‑Hamdallah said some of the ballot boxes and voting equipment did not make it into the enclave because of Israeli security restrictions, though those challenges were overcome.
Hamas’ Gaza spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, downplayed the significance of the election results, saying that they had no impact on wider national issues.