The Clerk Who Became a Writer Against His Will: Who Was Franz Kafka of Prague?

What would have happened if Kafka had lived for many more years and died of old age? How did a seemingly nondescript clerk become one of the greatest writers of the 20th century? Was his death the best thing that ever happened to him? Kafka's fascinating character is explored in a new exhibition at the National Library, showcasing the man whose life, work, and death became an inseparable part of the modern human experience.

Stefan Litt | 03.12.24

"One Kafka, One Hundred Times", Michel Kichka, 2024

Franz Kafka is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His works, particularly The Metamorphosis, The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika, are among the most important pieces of literature written in the West, due to the themes discussed as well as the style of writing, which was remarkably ahead of its time.

But why did Kafka – a seemingly nondescript government clerk whose works remained largely unpublished during his own lifetime – have such a profound impact on world literature? How did this person, who wanted his own writings burned after his premature death, become such an important author, whose style continues to be emulated by other writers 100 years after his death?

Today we can say that Kafka pioneered modern literature during the first quarter of the 20th century. The themes of his works—contending with oppressive bureaucracy, questions of identity and self-worth, the breakdown of traditional social structures, and the challenges of the modern world—were innovative for his time and found their place in contemporary literature thanks to him. The human condition depicted in many of his works is terrifying, grotesque, meaningless, and hopeless; In short, it is “Kafkaesque,” a term that is nowadays a common figure of speech.

Despite all the belated praise he eventually received, Kafka didn’t actually want his novels and stories published. Most of them were published gradually, contrary to his explicit will, only after the author’s death on June 3, 1924—at the age of 41—and were later translated from German into many other languages.

The many fascinating facets of Franz Kafka are currently on display in a special exhibition at the National Library of Israel marking 100 years since his passing, shedding light on the author, his works, and his life. Here, I will try to review some of the milestones of his life, as displayed in the exhibition, and answer the question, “Who was Franz Kafka, and why is his work so revolutionary and important?”

המהדורה הראשונה של הספר התבוננות עם הקדשה אישית למקס ברוד 1913 — First edition of *Contemplation*, with a personal dedication to Max Brod, 1913

Franz Kafka was born in Prague on July 3, 1883, as the eldest son of Hermann and Julie Kafka, the owners of a textile shop in the city center. He was followed by three sisters: Gabriele (“Elli”), Valerie (“Valli”), and Ottilie (“Ottla”). The Kafka family identified as Jewish, but like many Jews of the time, they saw themselves first and foremost as a part of German culture. Franz attended a German-speaking high school and graduated in 1901.

He studied alongside Samuel Hugo Bergmann who later became the director of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem (today’s National Library of Israel) and rector of the Hebrew University.

After completing school, Kafka began studying law, art history, philosophy, and German literature at the University of Prague. This was where he met his close friend Max Brod, another law student who was also a writer, poet, playwright, and composer. During this period, Kafka wrote the first draft of his stories Description of a Struggle and Wedding Preparations in the Country. Although he lived in Bohemia and spoke Czech, Kafka chose to write in German.

He took his first steps as a writer after completing his law studies at the University of Prague while simultaneously working as a professional clerk, which demanded that he be well-versed in the bureaucratic complexities of the insurance world. Following his university studies, he joined a law firm in Bohemia specializing in workplace accidents. He disliked the job and yet he excelled at it. Still, his heart was set on writing. Despite his new financial independence, he continued to live with his parents until the later stages of his life, something which contributed to family rifts that became motifs of his literary work.

כריכת המהדורה הראשונה של הרומן המשפט ברלין 1925 — Cover of the first edition of the novel *The Trial*, Berlin 1925

Clerk by Day, Writer by Night

Kafka often drew on themes from his experiences working as a lawyer in an administrative-bureaucratic system in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where the difference between his identity as a writer and his self-perception was significant. Many of his personal texts (for example, Letter to His Father, his personal letters to his friends, and his journals) reveal his pondering over his self-image and his literary capabilities. In contrast, his literary work focused on something that he himself had mastered, but that many feared and recoiled from– the great beast of bureaucracy. The two novels The Trial and The Castle reflect his experiences in the realm of bureaucracy and the sense of helplessness it instills in the ordinary citizen. His short story Before the Law serves as a sort of summary of these novels. None of these works have lost their value over time. They remain relevant today, which is the secret of Kafka’s success in many cultures around the world.

Kafka’s first book, Contemplation, was published in 1912. It was a collection of short stories he had composed a few years earlier. Later he released the story The Judgment, which was written in a single night in the fall of 1912 and reveals Kafka’s typically gloomy style. His most famous work, The Metamorphosis, tells the story of a traveling salesman who wakes up one morning in his bed to find that he has transformed into a giant insect. These works established a new style that required readers to confront the unpleasant and even frightening aspects of human existence and absurd situations that could not be based on real experience but rather on a well-developed imagination. In many of his works, the bureaucratic motif is expressed in the form of dark mechanisms that operate according to unclear principles that are not in the citizen’s favor, or in characters who serve those mechanisms. Kafka’s writing was very different from anything written before. He was likely aware of this, which may be one of the reasons why he refused to publish most of his works and even instructed that they be destroyed.

First edition of Contemplation, with a personal dedication to Max Brod, 1913.

The three novels Kafka wrote, which continued the themes he developed in his shorter works—Amerika (originally titled The Missing Person), The Trial, and The Castle—remained unfinished. Kafka asked Max Brod to burn all his manuscripts after his death. However, Brod decided not to fulfill Kafka’s wishes and instead published all of them. In doing so, he saved a number of literary masterpieces from destruction, making Kafka one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and a key figure of Western literature.

הנחיות קפקא למקס ברוד להשמיד את כל עזבונו אחרי מותו 1921 — Kafka’s instructions to Max Brod to destroy all his works after his death, 1921

Saving Kafka From Himself

What would have happened if Kafka had lived for many more years? It seems that his tragic end, which prevented him from controlling the publication (or non-publication) of his works, is what ironically helped him become one of the greatest writers of our time. The story of how he ordered his own works to be destroyed and his “betrayal” by Max Brod, who did the exact opposite, contributed to Kafka’s posthumous fame, which he never experienced in his lifetime.

Kafka contracted tuberculosis during World War I, in 1917, and it ultimately led to his death. Tuberculosis was one of the most common diseases of the early 20th century. At that time, there was still no cure for it. The disease spread primarily among populations suffering from nutritional deficiencies, and wartime periods were disastrous in this regard.

Initially, Kafka tried to treat the disease by taking a few months of rest outside the city, at his sister Ottilie’s home. However, as his condition worsened, he was forced to spend longer periods at various sanatoriums in Bohemia and Austria. In the final weeks of his life, the disease spread to his throat, preventing him from speaking, and forcing him to communicate with those around him through writing.

Despite the deterioration in his health, Kafka did not stop creating and writing. In 1921, he began to fear that his time was limited and he instructed his friend Brod to destroy all of his writings after his death. He nevertheless wrote The Castle in 1922 but was unable to finish it. During the last year of his life, he collected short stories for his final anthology, A Hunger Artist.

העטיפת המהדורה הראשונה של הרומן אמריקה מאת קפקא ספרו הראשון שראה אור בתרגום לעברית 1945 — Book cover of the first Hebrew edition of the novel *Amerika* by Franz Kafka, 1945. This was the first of Kafka’s works to appear in Hebrew translation.

Kafka Arrives in Mandatory Palestine

Kafka’s manuscripts were saved by Max Brod twice. The first time was when he refused to burn them, and the second – when Brod carried the manuscripts with him when he immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1939. Had that not happened, the writings could have fallen into the hands of the Nazis, and likely would not have survived World War II.

However, Kafka’s success is also due to the efforts of Shlomo Zalman Schocken, a man of words and action. From 1934, Kafka’s major works were published by the Schocken Publishing House in Berlin, and after the company was moved to Mandatory Palestine following its closure by the Nazis, Schocken made sure to translate them into Hebrew. From 1945, the novels and stories were published in numerous editions, and Kafka gained recognition among Hebrew readers as well. His novels were published in various editions and were translated several times. Additionally, the sale of publication rights for translations into different languages helped spread Kafka’s books to countless countries and tongues.

Book cover of the first Hebrew edition of the novel Amerika by Franz Kafka, 1945. This was the first of Kafka’s works to appear in Hebrew translation.

After making Aliyah, Max Brod continued to work in Israel and shared his personal stories about his relationship with Kafka among the local cultural circles. Kafka’s works became the subject of academic research, were analyzed in literary newspaper supplements, and inspired Israeli artists from various fields. Brod’s adaptation of The Castle into a play paved the novel’s way into the heart of the wider Israeli audience.

Kafka’s unique writing also attracted interest in Arab countries. In the late 1960s, various translations of his books and short stories began to be published in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. They sparked discussions about Kafka’s writing and his relationship to Judaism and Zionism.

Franz Kafka’s life story continues to capture a great deal of attention, primarily due to the tension between the simplicity of his life and the prominence of his status as a modern-classical writer. Since 1969, no significant steps have been taken in Israel to present the man, his surroundings, and his works in a significant exhibition. Now that the Max Brod Archive, which contains Kafka’s manuscripts and writings, has been brought to the National Library, this will be the first time such a wealth of unique Kafka materials will be displayed to the public.

Another Trial: A Kafkaesque Love Triangle

Despite his romantic and tortured image, Franz Kafka’s attitude towards women had its darker aspects. Who would have guessed that the tangled romantic triangle between Kafka, his fiancée Felice Bauer and her good friend Grete Bloch would produce one of the greatest literary classics of all time?

Judith Kagan | 27.11.24

Franz Kafka Jewish Authors

Franz Kafka and Felice Bauer, 1917. Mondadori Portfolio, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Four years ago, a new trend took TikTok by storm, with young women developing an obsession with a desirable bachelor by the name of Franz (Amshel) Kafka. The #Kafka hashtag received over 140 million views, and female TikTokers filmed themselves reading selected passages from Letters to Milena, the collection of correspondence written by Kafka to his muse, Milena Jesenská. Praise was lavished on the iconic author for his good looks and poetic writing style, and his written expressions of love were soon setting the bar for young women on TikTok, who declared that they would settle for nothing less in their future partners.

But what the Kafka fangirls missed was that the writer’s relationships with women had less positive aspects as well. In today’s terms, one could even argue that he was a bit of a “douche” or a “gaslighter.” These tangled relationships did not lead to a happy marriage or to a settled family life, but they did result in one of humanity’s greatest literary classics.

But the story I’m about to tell isn’t just juicy gossip concerning this tortured author. Who knew that the hurt feelings of a single man would lead to the creation of one of the greatest novels of the 20^th century, one which ostensibly has nothing to do with romantic relationships?

מרב סלומון, מתוך תערוכת אומנים ישראלים יוצרים בעקבות קפקא — By Merav Salomon, from the “Kafka: Metamorphosis of an Author” exhibition at the National Library of Israel

Kafka met Felice Bauer at the home of his good friend Max Brod in 1912 and was immediately impressed by her as a talented businesswoman and even a Zionist – a trait he found endearing, to his surprise. Bauer was an independent and modern woman by the standards of the time, the daughter of a German Jewish family who worked as a clerk in Berlin. He wrote to her five weeks after their first meeting and presented himself as the man who had been seated across from her at a table in Brod’s apartment and who had handed her a series of photographs to examine:

“and who finally, with the very hand now striking the keys, held your hand, the one which confirmed a promise to accompany him next year to Palestine”

(From a letter by Kafka to Felice Bauer, appearing in Kafka’s Other Trial by Elias Canetti)

Kafka was a man who fell in love via the written word, and indeed, his relationship with Felice was characterized by intense, powerful writing – more than 700 pages spread over the course of 500 letters.

They corresponded for years, yet only the letters that reached her have survived to this day. Even his marriage proposal was put in writing, included as a mere side issue in a letter that mainly discussed his manuscript of The Stoker. But as was his wont – the moment Felice said “yes,” Kafka began to panic at the very thought of settling down with a woman. In the following letters, he presented legal arguments that essentially attacked himself, artfully edited and arranged in a manner that clearly disclosed his own professional experience as a lawyer. He explained why she should reconsider marrying him – due to his own great concern for her:

“Haven’t I for months now been squirming before you like something poisonous? Am I not here one moment, there the next? Are you not beginning to feel sick at the sight of me? Can you not see by now that if disaster – yours, your disaster, Felice – is to be averted, I have to remain locked up within myself?”

(From a letter by Kafka to Felice Bauer, appearing in Kafka’s Other Trial by Elias Canetti)

Felice used the only weapon at her disposal in response – silence. She ceased responding to his letters, and if she did reply – she did so with a succinctness which tortured him. After months of sparse communication, Kafka told her that he had fled to Vienna. There, he participated in the Zionist Congress taking place at the time, but due to his bitter mood, his impression of the event was entirely negative.

Felice continued her stubborn silence, but since she heard nothing from Kafka, she sent her good friend Grete Bloch and asked her to mediate between them. Had she known the consequences of putting her friend in Kafka’s sights, she probably would have done anything to reverse that decision.

כרטיס הביקור של פרנץ קפקא — Franz Kafka’s calling card

Very little is known of Grete Bloch. Like Felice, she was also Jewish, a businesswoman and a practical type. Kafka’s quotes of her letters imply that her writing was efficient rather than literary, though she also tended to open up emotionally and share her experiences and inner world freely with the author.

The two often corresponded regarding Felice, discussing her deficiencies – such as dental treatments which left her with mostly golden teeth. Despite this occupation with Felice’s less attractive sides, Kafka finally returned and asked Felice once again to marry him, as a result of his correspondence with Bloch.

Yet despite the renewed engagement between Kafka and Felice, he continued to correspond with her good friend, sharing his continued fears regarding his upcoming marriage to Felice.

“Our relationship, which for me at least holds delightful and altogether indispensable possibilities, is in no way changed by my engagement or my marriage”

(From a letter by Kafka to Grete Bloch, appearing in Kafka’s Other Trial by Elias Canetti)

Although we know little about Bloch, we do know one thing for certain – she was a good and faithful friend to Felice. Bloch therefore took care to inform Felice that her fiancé was again becoming fickle and getting cold feet regarding their engagement. She also let Felice know that Kafka was corresponding with her (Grete) with the same passion and emotional warmth he’d expressed when writing to his betrothed.

אחד מרישומיו הידועים ביותר של קפקא מתוך המחברת המכונה המחברת השחורה — One of Kafka’s own drawings, appearing in what’s known as the “The Black Notebook”, the National Library of Israel

The High Court of Love

This strange love triangle reached a crescendo in a particularly charged meeting that included all three parties. Kafka was invited to a hotel in Berlin, and there in the lobby, he was put on trial for his duplicitous behavior with Bloch and Bauer. The prosecution was represented by Felice and her sister Erna, while Kafka was defended by his good friend, writer Ernst Weiss, who never liked Felice. Grete Bloch served as the judge, while also bringing forth his letters and marking all his dismissive statements towards Felice in red.

Kafka did not even try to defend himself on this occasion, and it is no wonder that this improvised trial terminated the engagement.

“He felt attacked,” said Stefan Litt, curator of the Humanities Collection at the National Library of Israel, “he felt that he was being unjustly tried, and that he was being accused without even understanding the charge.”

The sense of persecution and the “romantic trial” – in which Kafka’s loves served as accusers, judges, and executors – greatly influenced Kafka. As part of his effort to process and respond to what happened, he began to write one of the most important works in the western canon – The Trial.

מכתב של קפקא לגרטה בלוך, חברתה הטובה של פליצה באואר — A letter by Kafka to Grete Bloch, Felice Bauer’s friend, the National Library of Israel

All’s Fair in Love and War

The Trial tells the story of Josef K., a senior bank clerk who is accused one fine day of a crime he did not commit. Except that the investigators don’t investigate him, and the judges and surrounding officials aren’t even willing to tell him what he’s being charged with, instead making his life miserable with a row of damning accusations, charges, and legal proceedings. Josef feels powerless to halt the wheels of justice which are slowly but thoroughly grinding both him and – justice itself – into dust.

Alongside the many deep readings of Kafka’s story, which was previously thought to be primarily an indictment of modern bureaucracy, there is also the interpretation which establishes it as the way he experienced the “court” formed by the two women in his life, who put him “on trial” when they chose to support each other against him.

In real life, despite the traumatic encounter which led to the writing of the book, Kafka and Felice Bauer continued to correspond and even became engaged again after the dust had settled. Kafka intended to marry her – until he learned he was sick with tuberculosis. This bitter news greatly affected him emotionally and he had difficulty imagining a future, so he called off the engagement, thus ending his relationship with Bauer.

Other women over the years had an influence on Kafka’s writing and work, the most famous of which were Milena Jesenská – a Czech journalist and intellectual who also translated Kafka’s works into Czech from their original German – and Dora Diamant. Diamant met Kafka towards the end of his life, when he was 40 and she was 25. Originally from a family of Ger Hasids, she was the only woman he lived with in his adult life and she was the one who cared for him during his final years.

The Court Adjourns

Most of Kafka’s relatives and the women in his life were murdered in the Holocaust. Felice Bauer was an exception, having immigrated to the United States before the war. Like the good businesswoman she was, she sold the letters Kafka sent her, which were then collected into a volume. Bauer ultimately married to another man, one who did not panic at the very thought of being in the presence of a woman, and ultimately passed away in the 1960s in the United States.

You must be asking yourselves: What about Grete Bloch? As already noted, we know very little about her and her fate aside from the fact she perished in the Holocaust. But there are unconfirmed rumors about her and Kafka continuing their relationship, even after he ended things with Felice Bauer. Bloch gave birth to a child, and never said anything about the identity of the father. Some tried to claim that Kafka may have been the father, but the child died at the age of five, and documentation of him has not survived.

For his part, Kafka married neither Bauer nor Bloch. It’s really no wonder that the Kafka-Bauer-Bloch love triangle did not result in any sort of stable or normal relationship, and instead brought The Trial into the world. Kafka’s story would likely not have seen the light of day were it not for the tension and difficulty he experienced when confronted by two friends, bound by a sense of sisterhood, who stood together against him in the moment of truth.

One of the many letters Kafka wrote to Bloch will be displayed in the “Kafka: Metamorphosis of an Author” exhibition, which will open on December 4, 2024 at the National Library of Israel. In the exhibition, rare items such as Kafka’s will, letters in his handwriting, and even draft pages of The Castle that were left out of the published book will be on display, as well as items which tell the complicated story of Kafka and the women in his life. The exhibition marks the 100^th anniversary of Kafka’s passing.

Hannah Kritzman: The Storyteller of Kibbutz Be’eri

At age 15, Hannah Kritzman ran away from home to Kibbutz Be'eri, where she became a beloved preschool teacher and founded the local children's library. 73 years later, on October 7, after spending hours hiding with her caregiver in her safe room, Hannah was shot by a Hamas terrorist, just as the two were being rescued. The memoir she completed shortly before her death offers us a glimpse of what a wonderful woman she was.

Yael Ingel | 27.11.24

Gaza Border Region Lives Lost: The Works of the October 7 Fallen – A Special Project

A few months after Hannaleh Kritzman, the legendary storyteller of Kibbutz Be’eri, wrote down her life story and celebrated its publication, her family had to add the following preface to it:

Hannaleh Kritzman was shot in Kibbutz Be’eri by Hamas terrorists on the awful Saturday of October 7, 2023. She died from her severe wounds on October 21, 2023. She was 88 years old at the time of her murder.

***

88-year-old Hannah, or “Hannaleh”, Kritzman was one of the oldest victims of that fateful day in October 2023. Her family took some comfort in the knowledge that Hannah had lived a full life. A few months earlier, they had managed to publish an autobiographical memoir celebrating her life. “The Story of the Storyteller” was its title. “I’m so glad we managed to finish the project while she was still alive,” says her son, Tzafrir Keren. “She was happy and proud of it. We organized a special celebration for the entire family, where she handed out a copy with a dedication to each of her children and grandchildren.”

עמוד ראשון — *Sipurah shel Mesaperet HaSipurim* – “The Story of the Storyteller” – Hannah Kritzman’s book, Ot Vaod Publishing

The book, written at the initiative of her children and recounting the story of her life, is a memento of the special woman she was, who so loved books and stories. They suggested to their parents that both of them should write down their life stories for future generations. Their father refused, but Hannaleh threw herself into the process. For several months, she sat in the living room of her home in Kibbutz Be’eri, working with the author, Eli Khalifa, as the two wove her life story together.

חנוכת הספר כל המשפחה המורחבת — The book launch event for Hannaleh’s book with the entire extended family, March 2022. From a private album

***

Running Away to a Kibbutz? – “Over my dead body!”

Hannaleh spent her early years of her life in a place that was very different from the place where it ended. She was the eldest of five siblings, born to a low-income family in the Florentin neighborhood of Tel Aviv. The family of seven shared their modest two-room apartment with another family. She inherited her love of stories from her parents, who would tell their children stories while they huddled together on the one bed in their apartment. But Hannah didn’t really have time to enjoy a good book back then. As a teenager, she had to attend evening classes so she could help support the family financially. At meetings of her youth movement, HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (“The Working and Studying Youth”), she heard about Ben-Gurion’s call to settle the southern Negev region and about a new kibbutz named Be’eri that was about to be built there.

מתוך הספר שלה 3 — Hannah with her bicycle, from her book, page 39

“Over my dead body” was her father’s response when Hannah told him she wanted to settle the wilderness, and what’s more, with such a disreputable institution as a kibbutz. “If you go, you won’t have anywhere to return to,” her parents desperately threatened, afraid of losing their eldest child. The year was 1950, and they didn’t really understand what a kibbutz was. The rumors they had heard (“They share everything there; even the children!”) only made matters worse.

מתוך הספר שלה 2 — The Gottesdiener family, from her book, page 33.

But Hannah didn’t give up. With youthful determination, she ran away from home, caught a bus to Kibbutz Sa’ad, which was a few kilometers north of Be’eri, and walked the rest of the way on foot, with two boys who were the same age as her, carrying rifles they had received because there were known to be “fedayeen” militants roaming the area. The warm welcome she received from the founders of Be’eri, who were sitting and singing around the bonfire, was the moment Hannaleh fell in love with the kibbutz—a love that never faded.

All contact between Hannaleh and her family in Tel Aviv was severed for months, but it felt like an eternity. Longing for her parents and siblings tore at the heart of the young pioneer. Eventually, her mother went to consult with the neighborhood rabbi, who said, “If she went to a kibbutz in the Negev, she has done a great mitzvah, for we are commanded to settle the land.” The rabbi’s response softened the father’s heart. He relented and they reconciled. Before he passed away at a ripe old age, almost like an apology to his daughter, the father asked to be buried in the kibbutz, a request that was honored.

Initially, Hannaleh worked in the vegetable garden, but she did not excel as a farmer. As one of the kibbutz members told her: “Whether you work or not — it makes no difference.” She was deeply offended, but her anger only fueled her determination to prove herself. She decided to specialize as a dairy farmer and spent time working in the dairy, enduring the long milking hours at strange times of day and night, as an equal among equals. Together with all the young members of the kibbutz, Hannaleh joined the IDF’s Nahal program, which combined military service with community building and agriculture. Once she married, she finally found her calling. The young girl who had attended evening classes became a preschool teacher, helping to raise and nurture generations of kibbutz children.

מתוך הספר שלה 9 — Tziki and Hannaleh on their wedding day, with Hannaleh’s parents, Hadassah and Simcha, from her book, page 68.

***

Generations of children in Be’eri were raised by Hannaleh Kritzman. Although she never formally studied education, her well-developed and nurturing educational approach came naturally to her. She was drawn to this work, never leaving it until her retirement.

“What was unique about her education was that she never gave up on any child,” says her son. “At that time, they didn’t know about attention disorders, but she understood it intuitively: when a child couldn’t sit still and wanted to go out and chase birds, she’d go out with him to search for them.” Hannaleh understood the children. She knew how to engage, connect, and show that together they could achieve more. She always walked alongside the children she taught, with them, not against them—never through yelling, never through force. “Even with the grandchildren, for example, if they needed to go take a shower in the evening, she’d never fight, force, or bribe them. She knew how to create a situation where the child himself wanted to get in the shower, through play or speaking with them at eye level, and there was always her tempting promise: ‘If you shower quickly, we’ll have time to read a story.’”

מתוך הספר שלה 12 — Hannaleh reading a book to the children of the kibbutz, from a private album

When Yotam Keren, one of her grandchildren, decided to specialize in pediatric medicine, she offered her assistance: Before his residency began, she’d go with him and his fellow future doctors and teach them how to approach children in a way that wouldn’t scare them. It was clear to her that she had something to teach them.

“These are experiences that children never forget”

Books were an educational tool that Hannaleh used in a particularly clever way. “When a child would disrupt the class while she was about to read a book, she would say to him, ‘Come, you have a special job to do. Hold the book for me and turn the pages when it’s time.’ She captivated everyone, even the other teachers!” said her son, Tzafrir.

Hannaleh’s deep love for books accompanied her throughout her time as a preschool teacher, but she sought other ways to bring children closer to the world of reading.

When she had the idea of establishing a children’s library in Be’eri, she envisioned it as a place where families could come together and have bonding experiences. The library was located in an old building that had previously housed the elementary school’s science lab, and Hannaleh organized it into a warm and inviting atmosphere, with colorful rugs and cushions. She would open it in the afternoons and hold storytelling sessions for the children. “She didn’t just read aloud: She used sound and motion and involved the listeners by asking questions,” her son recounts.

She planned events and meetings with authors at the local library, and the library became a vibrant cultural center. Later, after serving as an exceptionally successful cultural coordinator in the kibbutz, she was appointed the cultural director of the entire Kibbutz Movement, where she mentored cultural coordinators in many other kibbutzim.

Even after she retired from teaching, Hannaleh continued visiting the preschools in Be’eri, where her presence was welcomed by both the children and the adults. Even at the age of 80, she volunteered two or three times a week to read stories to the children, who would immediately gather around her in a circle. “She never just ‘read a story’.” her son says. “When she read Yael’s House [a classic Israeli children’s book about a young girl who chooses a wooden box as her new home], she brought a large cardboard box and let all the children take turns sitting inside it. When she read A Tale of Five Balloons, she took them outside to blow up balloons together. These are experiences children never forget.”

It wasn’t just children who fell under her spell. While retired, she traveled twice a week to the nearby town of Sderot, to a club run by the Enosh Association, where she volunteered to read stories to people with disabilities, who eagerly awaited her visits every time. “She always said she felt she received more from them than she gave them, and she never gave it up, even when she was ill,” her son Tzafrir shared.

An Unfathomable Disaster

On October 7, Hannaleh was at home with her husband Tziki, and their Filipina caregiver, Abigail Rivero. When the first sirens went off, she and the caregiver immediately entered the safe room, while Tziki, refusing to panic, insisted on staying in his armchair in the living room to watch TV.

That morning, Tzafrir watched in horror as his father sat in the living room, with the sounds of fierce battles raging throughout the kibbutz in the background. He watched the events unfold live, through cameras that the children had installed in their elderly parents’ home, mainly out of concern about potential falls or health emergencies. At some point, the cameras stopped working. Tzafrir was powerless: “I felt terror combined with an immense sense of relief – whatever happened to my parents, for better or for worse, I wouldn’t see it live.” All three survived the long hours of that awful day. The terrorists massacred people in the neighboring homes but, for whatever reason, happened to leave their home alone.

מתוך הספר שלה 14 — Hannaleh and Tziki, from a private album

Just before morning on Sunday, a group of reservists came to rescue them and help them evacuate. The elderly couple drove in a golf cart toward the exit from the kibbutz, with soldiers walking alongside to guard them, when a terrorist who had remained in the kibbutz fired at them from a rooftop a few meters away. Hannaleh was shot in the stomach.

Kritzman was shot while she was being rescued from her home in Kibbutz Be’eri and was taken to Meir Hospital, where she lay unconscious for two weeks, sedated and on a ventilator. Her tenth great-grandchild was born a few days later, in the same hospital. Hannaleh never got to meet the baby, and she died from her wounds on October 21, 2023.

After about 20 minutes of fighting, the rescue unit managed to get the couple to a gathering point at the entrance to the kibbutz, where Hannaleh was boarded onto a helicopter that took her to the hospital. Her injury was severe, and would have been so even for a young person. Since it wasn’t possible to bury anyone in Be’eri due to the ongoing fighting in the area, the victims of Be’eri were buried in temporary graves around the country. Hannaleh was initially buried in Kibbutz Einat, and then in the summer of 2024, she was taken to her final resting place in her beloved kibbutz. The Be’eri families had to bury their loved ones a second time, a permanent, final burial, which was no simple matter and took a significant emotional toll—eulogies were written and read once more. Perhaps the only comfort was in the traditional social gathering at the kibbutz members’ club after each funeral. Hannaleh was buried next to her parents, and with her favorite book, Children’s Island by the Jewish author Mira Lobe, at her request.

Whatsapp Image 2024 10 14 At 12.23.49 — Hannaleh’s grave at Kibbutz Be’eri, alongside the graves of her parents, Simcha and Hadassah Gottesdiener. Photo by Tzafrir Keren

“Our disaster pales in comparison,” says Tzafrir. “The disaster that took place at Kibbutz Be’eri as a whole is unfathomable—children, entire families were murdered. I lost so much more than just my mother. Adi Dagan, my best friend since preschool, who I spent all my childhood with, was murdered. I had just been texting with him that morning and promised him that the army was on the way. He replied, ‘There’s no one here’.”

Channaleh’s grandson Omer Keren wrote in her memory: “Grandma Hannah was the most optimistic person in the world. When her angelic Filipina caregiver, who bravely protected her for 20 hours in the small safe room, came to say goodbye at the hospital, she burst into tears: ‘Who will tell me to wake up tomorrow morning with a new song in my heart?’ That’s my grandmother. A woman of words, for whom words are too small. This is not the ending she deserves. She never told anyone a story with a sad ending, and her story can’t be like that either.

Grandma used to say that the only remedy is to smile, to keep creating, to love, to build something new. Just like the huge, united family she created is her truest revenge against the Nazis who destroyed her parents’ families. To return to Be’eri and rebuild it just like the paradise she built herself.”

The library building in Be’eri was severely damaged during the murderous attack in October 2023. While writing this article, I received moving news from Aliza Gad, the Kibbutz Be’eri member who replaced Hannaleh as the library director: The library building will not be demolished but will be renovated and reopened in the future.

***

At the beginning of her book, Hannaleh wrote a general dedication to her readers:

“A person leaves home with a suitcase. Inside, they place love, caring, sensitivity to others, compassion, and curiosity, and then each time, they can open it to learn how to give from it to others. But when the suitcase from home is empty, they cannot develop or give to their surroundings. Therefore, as parents, we must equip our children with a suitcase full of good things.”

“After a person has gone, what remains of them? Not their possessions, not their money, but their story, whether they wrote it or told it. And now I present my story to you.”

Did He Write It or Not? The Mystery of the Torah Scroll Attributed to the Ran

This centuries-old Torah scroll underwent many travails, changing not only its geographical location multiple times but also its identity and history. “Everything depends on luck, even a Torah scroll in the Holy Ark,” says the Zohar. It seems this Torah scroll did not have the best of luck.

Daniel Lipson | 21.11.24

Deciphering Jewish Manuscripts Jewish Manuscripts Manuscripts Moroccan Jewry Sephardic Jewry סודות כתבי היד העבריים

The Torah scroll once attributed to the Ran, the National Library of Israel, the Ktiv Project

One day in 1978, a centuries-old Torah scroll was discovered deep inside the National Library of Israel, practically by coincidence. The scroll, written on dark parchment, also had a silver plate, which was apparently discovered beforehand, with an etched explanation of the scroll’s origins. The scroll’s height was almost half a meter, and it was written in early Sephardic script. The scroll had not been cataloged nor did it appear in our records of manuscripts. In short, a mystery (patience, we’ve only just begun and from here onwards things will only get weirder). No-one knew how it ended up in the collection, but the experts at the National Library immediately identified what this Torah scroll was.

Some 40 years earlier, on the eve of Passover in 1936, the Haaretz newspaper published a fascinating article on a unique Torah scroll that had been discovered. The article was written by Rabbi Baruch Toledano, a scholar and author who once discovered a copy of the famous Commentary on the Mishnah in Maimonides’ own handwriting (sections of which are preserved at the National Library).

According to the article, the scroll was written by none other than Rabeinu Nissim Ben Reuven of Gerona (Girona) (1290-1376), known as “The Ran”, an important commentator and religious jurist in 14^th century Spain. After the Jewish expulsion from Spain, one of the exiles – a respected elder – brought the scroll from Spain to a small Jewish community based in Brazil. There, a Shadar – an emissary of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel – acquired the scroll in the early 20^th century. This emissary, Chacham Yahya Dahan from the northern city of Tiberias, brought the scroll to the Holy Land.

Antique Torah scrolls are spread throughout the world, but there is usually no evidence of their scribe. This one, however, had clear signs pointing to the author. One of the most prominent is the colophon (a portion of text describing the time and circumstances of its writing) written on the other side of the Torah scroll’s parchment, at its very beginning.

Adding a theoretical portion to a kosher Torah scroll is considered an unconventional and religiously very problematic action. Still, the colophon is there, prominently displayed, telling the scroll’s tale in Sephardic script written in brown ink. The colophon’s author, according to its text, is Rav Reuven, the son of the Ran. He describes the troubles which befell the Jews of Spain during the Christian pogroms of 1391, writing that he managed to flee with his father’s scroll:

“For three months, the fire of conflagration spread in the holy communities of the children of Israel, in the exile of Spain… the kingdoms of Castile, Toledo, Seville, Majorca, Cordoba, Valencia, Barcelona, Aragon, Granada… a blow of sword, killing and death, religious destruction, captivity … and we were sold as slaves and handmaidens to the Yishmaelites… the seekers of blood carried out their plot… and I saved all the scrolls of our holy Torah and with them this book that belonged to my father and mentor… and our heart is filled with terror and fear and our lives are torn for there is no faith as to our end…”

20240925 085213 — The colophon at the beginning of the Torah scroll, on its back

Rabbi Toledano didn’t suffice with the testament of the colophon as evidence of the scribe’s identity, and he presented additional proof in his article in Haaretz: the form of the some of the Hebrew qof (kuf – ק) letters in the scroll. Here’s what Rabbi Simeon Ben Zemah Dura (1361-1444) said on the matter in his responsa:

“I also heard that the Rabbi R. Nissim Gerondi ob”m who was in Barcelona and who was the Rabbi of my rabbis ob”m that he wrote a Torah scroll for himself and the legs of the [letter] qof would be stuck to their roof.” (Shut Tashbetz, 1.51)

And indeed, the Torah scroll in question often had the qof, which is usually made up of two separate parts, connected in a way reminiscent of the letter chet – ח, with a long left leg.

Remember the silver plate that came with the scroll? The form of the letters and the menorah etched on it indicate that the plate was not made in the Ran’s time and was actually a copy, yet the text of the plate explicitly attests that the Ran wrote the scroll himself and donated it to the synagogue:

“This holy Torah scroll, I wrote for myself and my merit, Nissim son of my master, my father, teacher, and Rabbi Reuven Girondi, may his creator preserve him and keep him alive. I gave on condition to the synagogue of Kohelet Yaakov to the holy congregation in Barcelona…”

The 1936 newspaper article was not the only appearance of the Torah scroll in question. Scholar and historian Shmuel Kraus mentions it in his book Korot Batei Hatfilah Beyisrael [The History of Jewish Prayer Houses, published in 1955 after his death]. Kraus saw the scroll when he visited Tiberias in 1934. He describes the scroll as being made of the skin of a red deer and being difficult to read. The scroll’s author asked Kraus to help him sell it, but Kraus didn’t succeed in brokering a transaction. A few years later, another attempt was made to sell the scroll in Jerusalem.

The last testament to the scroll’s existence before its disappearance appears in the book Tzidkat Hatzadik [The Righteousness of the Tzadik] by Rabbi Aryeh Leib Friedman, who wrote that in the summer of 1952, he travelled to the Chacham Yahya Dahan (the emissary we mentioned earlier) in Tiberias and saw the Ran’s Torah scroll there.

Doubts begin to emerge

The enthusiasm which accompanied the important and accidental discovery at the National Library was quickly dampened by scholars who had questions about the source of the Torah scroll and its ostensible author. Despite the careful argument made by Rabbi Toledano in 1936, doubters did not lack alternative explanations. For instance, it was known that the lettering styles in Jewish holy books differed among Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews and depended on the period in which they were written. Indeed, some of the letters in the Torah scroll in question were different than those used in the time and place in which the Ran lived.

Shlomo Zucker of the National Library’s manuscript department noted another strange fact: In the Torah scroll in question, the song of Haazinu contained 70 lines, yet in the Ran’s time it was customary to use 67 lines, in accordance with a ruling by Maimonides.

האזינו — *Haazinu* in 70 lines instead of the 67 used during the Ran’s lifetime

Doubts also arose as to the colophon. It turned out that its description of the 1391 pogroms was chronologically inaccurate. It also contained words that were relatively modern compared to the Ran’s time, and it also contained acronyms unknown from other sources. Furthermore, acronyms were marked with quotation marks, as is done today in Hebrew, even though in the Ran’s time – and later – they were marked by periods.

Another problem with the colophon’s history is that it mentioned the city of Granada in southern Spain as one of the cities attacked by Christian pogroms – except that in that year, Granada was still in Muslim hands. A slightly different spelling of Granada was etched into the silver plate, a text supposedly written by the Ran:

“This Torah scroll I wrote for myself and for my merit … Nissim son of my master, father, teacher and Rabbi Reuven Grinodi.

For scholars, the great contradiction here is that the Ran, like Maimonides, Rabeinu Yonah, and others, lived in the city of Girona in northeast Spain and not Granada/Grinoda/Grinodi in its south. In his article, Rabbi Toledano tried to explain this contradiction by suggesting that perhaps the Ran was indeed from Granada and not from Girona as originally thought, but this explanation was rejected by other scholars.

ספרד — Map of Spain, Abraham Ortelius, Amsterdam 1586. National Library of Israel collections

Despite the multiple questions surrounding the origin of the Torah scroll, the National Library accepted the source’s own testimony in the colophon and silver plate and presented the scroll as having been the Ran’s own creation. In 1992, to mark 500 years since the Spanish Expulsion and 100 years since the founding of the National Library, the Library put on a special exhibit of “Books [and manuscripts] from Spain.” The exhibit’s catalog shows the scroll under the heading “Torah scroll written by Rabbi Nissim Ben Reuven Girondi (the Ran) for himself” and notes that the scroll was acquired by the Library. No further details were provided. Eight years later, to mark the 75^th anniversary of Hebrew University, the scroll was once again put on display and presented in the printed catalog.

And the results are in…

Yet the doubts persisted. In 2012, a sample of the scroll’s parchment was sent to a lab at the Weizmann Institute to conduct a carbon-14 test on it. Since this test is used to date archaeological findings containing organic material, a parchment made of animal skin is very appropriate for such a test.

The results showed, by a probability of 86%, that the Torah scroll is dated to the time period of 1470-1680 – at least 100 years after the Ran’s death. Put another way: the scroll may be old, but the colophon and the plate are false and attest to a forgery. It could be that the forgery was committed to increase the value of the scroll. In an effort to explain the errors in the descriptions, scholars believe the forger who added the colophon and created the silver plate inscription was not very familiar with Spain’s geography and confused Girona and Granada. In his book Chazon Tverimun, which discusses the counterfeiting industry in Tiberias, Moshe Hillel describes the history of the forgery of this Torah scroll and thus explains all the doubts raised concerning it.

בראשית — The first verses of the Torah scroll attributed to the Ran

So where did it come from?

If it wasn’t owned or written by the Ran in Spain, then where is this scroll from and whose was it?

According to Moshe Hillel, the Torah scroll appears to have come from Morocco. The Moroccan Jewish community was in possession of antique Torah scrolls, some of them were even made before the expulsion from Spain, which Jews fleeing the Inquisition brought with them. In 1810-1910, some Moroccan Jews immigrated to Brazil, bringing along with them a number of Torah scrolls and settling in the region of the Amazon.

The emissary from Tiberias, Yahya Dahan, may have come to Brazil and returned with an old Torah scroll. But since the attribution to the Ran is false, it is also possible that the scroll never even passed through Brazil but rather arrived directly from Morocco to the Land of Israel, after which a whole story was stitched together to make its provenance sound greater than it was.

Others believe that the scroll may have originated in the Land of Israel or even Turkey.

20240925 085409 — The portion of *Bereshit* in the Torah scroll attributed to the Ran

If the Torah scroll had indeed been written by an important Torah scholar such as the Ran, we could have learned much from it on the customs of writing holy Hebrew texts in Medieval Spain. And indeed, Rabbis and scholars tried to do just that in a number of articles. While the scroll does seem to be quite old, it is unfortunately not “old enough,” and what we can learn from its writing is unrelated to the Ran or to the Jews of Spain. The scroll certainly served some Jewish community for many years, and perhaps we do need to remember it – as a historic document of the lives of Sephardic Jews is some other location.

The Zohar, in relation to the Torah portion of Naso, says “Everything depends on luck, even a Torah scroll in the Holy Ark.” So yes, even Torah scrolls need a little luck. There are Torah scrolls that sit unused in the ark of a synagogue for a whole year and are only brought out to be danced with on the festival of Simchat Torah. Other scrolls, the luckier ones, have the privilege of being used several times a week.

This famous Torah scroll that was once attributed to the Ran has experienced varying luck over the centuries. Once a holy relic associated with one of the great leaders and sages of 14^th century Jewry, it is today linked to fraud and deceit. And perhaps here we have a final stroke of good fortune: Despite its dubious reputation, instead of being buried or hidden away like other Torah scrolls with problematic histories, it is preserved, maintained, and sometimes even put on display at the National Library of Israel.