The archive of one of the most important Jewish thinkers of our time recently arrived at the National Library: the personal files of the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, a Jewish leader who was admired around the world, and a close friend of King Charles III. This is the story of a person who would have preferred “man” and “Jew” to any other title on earth.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Photo courtesy of the Rabbi Sacks Legacy
“The time will come when the nations of the world will recognize that the power of ideas is greater than the idea of power.”
These words were uttered at an event held in Jerusalem in May of 2014, an event celebrating the renewal of the National Library of Israel. The speaker, an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University, was Rabbi Lord Professor Jonathan Sacks, who served as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years – one of the most famous Jews in the world.
If you had got ahold of Jonathan Sacks as a child in the 1950s and told him that he would one day be the bearer of so many prestigious titles, that he would meet the Pope, or that King Charles III himself would mourn his passing (in Hebrew), he would probably have responded with typical British politeness and told you that you must be mistaking him for someone else.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was born in London, just two months before the State of Israel declared its independence, to Louis and Libby Sachs, proud working-class Orthodox Jews. Louis was born in Poland, and he invested all his energy in becoming part of British society and looking after the welfare of his children. While he wasn’t able to pass down a legacy of Talmudic knowledge, he made sure they took pride in their identity and were given a proper Jewish upbringing, even while attending primarily Christian schools.
Rabbi Sacks once said that “My father would rather lose a friend than compromise a principle and my mother kept all the friends my father lost.” The old dictum, “Be a Jew at home and a man in the street”, typified the prevailing atmosphere in which Jonathan Sacks was raised.
Members of the National Library of Israel’s Archives Department pictured with items from the Rabbi Sacks Archive, London, 2023
Somewhat ironically, it was during his school years at Christ’s College that Sacks was involved for the first time in educational activity related to his Jewish origin: Almost half of the students were Jewish. Together with a few friends, Sacks worked to organize a regular morning study hour devoted to learning Judaism. This was the first time he was able to draw young people to study the sources and foundational texts of their heritage. During this activity, he learned something else: The teachers, who were Christian almost without exception, not only did not oppose this study hour, they showed real respect to their students’ devotion to their own faith. Difference does not necessitate hatred or division – this would be a guiding motto for the duration of Rabbi Sacks’ life.
At 18, he began studying philosophy at Cambridge University. Three years later, in 1969, he earned a 1st Class Honours Degree and was awarded a Rhonda Research Fellowship in Moral Philosophy.
But academic success was not his only important accomplishment in these years. There were other events during this time which were significant in shaping his personal and public future.
One of these was the 1967 Six Day-War, which led to a global wave of Jewish and Zionist awakening. This shift was felt even in the halls of British universities, including Cambridge. Jewish students collected donations for Israel and also began to become increasingly interested in their own Judaism and its practical significance in their lives.
Another major turning point took place in 1968 when Sacks travelled to New York, in what turned out to be far more than a simple bit of tourism. There, in the city containing the largest population of Jews in the world, he encountered Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson – the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The young Sacks came to the meeting as a skeptic, with a list of questions which concerned him at the time. But he left with his head filled with no less important and piercing questions which the Rebbe asked of him: How many Jewish students are there in Cambridge? What are you doing to develop your Judaism in this environment? And most importantly – what are you doing for other Jewish students?
Sacks once recalled to an audience –
“I’d come to ask a few simple questions, and all of a sudden he was challenging me. So I did the English thing. You know, the English can construct sentences like nobody else, you know? They can construct more complex excuses for doing nothing, than anyone else on earth. (laughter)
So I started the sentence, ‘In the situation in which I find myself…’ – and the Rebbe did something which I think was quite unusual for him, he actually stopped me in mid-sentence. He says, ‘Nobody finds themselves in a situation; you put yourself in a situation. And if you put yourself in that situation, you can put yourself in another situation.'”
The man who was then just Jonathan Sacks, a bright Jewish student at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, returned to England to complete his degree. But his view of his role in the world and his studies, had radically changed.
That year, he met his future wife Elaine, as she walked across the campus courtyard with a friend – “I thought, this is the person most unlike me I’ve ever encountered. She radiated joy.” It was love at first sight, for both of them. He needed just three weeks to buy a ring and pop the question in the middle of Oxford Circus. Elaine accompanied him from there on out, including on his travels to distant locations.
And travel he did. It was the beginning of the path of a great teacher who would very quickly become a guide for masses of people around the world, whom Prince Charles, the future King, would later call “a light unto the nations.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks with his wife, on their wedding day. Photo courtesy of the Rabbi Sacks Legacy
In the following years, alongside academic achievements like an MA at New College, Oxford (1972), a PhD from the Philosophy and Theology department at King’s College (1981), a visiting professorship at the University of Essex (1989), and a visiting professorship for Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College (1998), he began to operate at the religious level as a teacher and spiritual leader.
He lectured on matters of philosophy and theology at academic institutions around the world, and received rabbinic ordination at Jews’ College and Yeshiva Ezt Chaim an in London (1976). Two years afterward, he began serving as a synagogue Rabbi in Golders Green and then in Marbel Arch.
Where many had failed, or had even failed to make the attempt – Rabbi Sacks succeeded. He was able to bring ancient Jewish ideas and traditions into the 20th century, managing to engage new Jewish audiences, especially amongst younger Jews. He gave new life and exposed people to ideas that were thousands of years old, ideas which were previously often considered irrelevant and detached from modern life.
He wrote, spoke, and gave sermons on many a platform and for a variety of media, events, and institutions, both Jewish and non-Jewish. With elegant, quiet charisma, he presented his religious and philosophical approach, which was founded on a deep and unshakable Jewish faith, yet consisted of ideas – particularly liberal and humanistic ideas – that belonged to philosophers and thinkers of all religions.
He spoke to Jews and of Judaism in a way that no-one had done before.
In 1991, with the retirement of Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, he was offered the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, the top rabbinical position in the United Kingdom. It was a shining opportunity, which included more than a few perks. But he understood the great responsibility involved in the role and wondered whether it was right to take on such a burden. He thus appealed, in a letter which later became very famous, to the man who first set him on the path of leadership – the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
The letter provides an image of a modest man, unexcited by the power derived from his office, but who is well aware of the unique virtues and worldview that he can bring to the table, and who also possesses a fierce desire for change and renewal.
He accepted the role, and completed the transition from unofficial grassroots community leader to his new formal position as the title-holding, premier representative of British Jewry. His first plan of action focused on education – with an emphasis on strengthening Jewish identity and ties to the younger generation, particularly university students.
His influence soon extended beyond the British Isles. He received honorary degrees and titles from many academic and religious institutions around the world, and Jews – both young and young at heart – flocked to his lectures and enthusiastically read his books.
A search of the National Library’s collections results in dozens of books written by Rabbi Sacks, both in English and Hebrew translation. These books, the majority of which deal with timeless, universal questions like the relationship between religion and science, the place of the individual in modern society, tolerance among cultures, dealing with human radicalism, and more, became bestsellers around the world and were read by Jews and non-Jews alike.
In the archive of Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, which can also be found at the National Library, there is a review of one of Sacks’ books, Crisis and Covenant, in which Leibowitz wrote the following:
“It should be noted that these things were not said to a specifically Jewish audience, but to a general academic audience. Yet the author speaks as a Jew in all of his being, whose heart is given to the problem of Judaism among the Jewish People today, and not to presenting it to the outside world, and it is needless to say – without any purpose of ‘show[ing] the nations and the ministers her beauty’ … The book in general is an important contribution to Jewish thought in our day and we must – and are even commanded – to dress it in Hebrew garb.”
The ability to connect different worlds, the belief in the inclusion and acceptance of the other, is one of the most prominent cornerstones of Rabbi Sacks’ thought. In a brief conversation on any subject in the world, he could quote Rabbi Saadyah Gaon, Blaise Pascal, Abraham, and Philo. He was unafraid of contrary ideas or the people who advocated them. In his speeches, he often referred to Nietzsche as his “favorite atheist”.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks at the National Library of Israel, 2016. Photo: Hanan Cohen
But despite the accusations of ideological rivals who could not contain such a diversity of ideas, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was not the kind of person who changed his opinions based on whoever he spoke to last. He was the same man when he spoke to the Pope and when he spoke to sixth graders at a Jewish school in Texas. His liberal and humanist views were planted deep in ancient Jewish thought. He was a complete man, straight as an arrow, filled to the brim with knowledge originating from different corners of the globe and with religious and national pride, a pride originating in all the good his nation and faith had to offer the world, without condescending over others.
The tolerance he spoke so much about was not just directed outwards towards other cultures but also and perhaps primarily inwards, towards ourselves.
When he came to speak at the 2014 renewal ceremony at the National Library’ of Israel’s previous abode, he ended his speech (which included quotes from Isaiah, Amos Oz, Sergei Brin, Akhenaton, Rashi, Maimonides, and Plato) in a direct reference to what he considered to be the Library’s most important role:
“…the National Library is a library that can form connections between Jews in this very, very fragmented Jewish world that we have now, where the gap between religious and secular continues to grow. As I began by saying, if there is one thing that even secular Jews believe profoundly, it is that we have a share in this heritage of literature and literacy. That is what makes the Jewish people what it is. That’s what Amos Oz was trying to tell us. That is what that wonderful MK Ruth Calderon, was doing in her maiden speech in the Knesset, when as a woman and as a secular Jew, she gets up and gives a Talmud lesson to the members of Knesset. It was a brilliant lesson, and it was a lovely way of saying, “You know what? This text belongs to all of us.” […] A campaign, a way of extending the National Library so that everyone can plug into it, is a way of opening up the Jewish text and the Jewish commentary to what Torah She’be’al Peh – the Oral Torah – is really supposed to be, the ongoing conversation scored for many voices of Jews in conversation with the terms of their destiny. We like argument. In fact, I don’t think we know any other form of conversation.”
See the full 2014 speech here:
This was not mere rhetoric. Despite his status as a global celebrity, he conducted himself in everyday life with humility and with respect for all people as such. Everyone who worked or met with him in different circumstances said the same thing: When you spoke with Rabbi Sacks, you felt you were the most important person in the world for him at that moment.
Tsur Ehrlich, the skillful translator of most of Rabbi Sacks’ books into Hebrew, told us of a phone call he received one year, on the eve of Yom Kippur. On the other line was none other than Rabbi Sacks himself. He wanted to wish him a gmar chatimah tovah [that he might be inscribed in God’s Book of Life, a traditional Yom Kippur greeting].
“I believe,” Ehrlich added “that he had thousands of calls that day. I was on his list, even though we’d hardly had a chance to work together. He spoke with warmth, fondness, and it didn’t feel like he was doing it just to check a box. Both at conferences or lectures in Israel – whenever I met him, he would immediately identify me and welcome me warmly.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks passed away in 2020, at the age of 72. He was eulogized by the Prince of Wales at the time, who is today King Charles III, with the following words:
“Through his writings, sermons, and broadcasts, Rabbi Sacks touched the lives of countless people with his unfailing wisdom, with his profound sanity, and with a moral conviction which, in a confused and confusing world, was all too rare.
He and I were exact contemporaries, born in the year of the foundation of the State of Israel, and over many years I had come to value his counsel immensely. He was a trusted guide, an inspired teacher, and a true and steadfast friend. I shall miss him more than words can say.
[…] In 2013, at the event to mark Rabbi Sacks’ retirement as Chief Rabbi after 22 distinguished years, I said – deliberately misquoting Isaiah – that he was a “light unto the nations”, and said I hoped he would keep that light burning for many years to come. That was only seven years ago, but in the years that he was given to us, how brightly that light burned, how many lives were brightened, how many dark places were illuminated. He was truly ‘or lagoyim‘, a light unto the nations.
[…] Yehi zichro baruch, May his memory be for a blessing.”
The 2024 Sacks Conversation was held at the National Library of Israel on Thursday 21 November, 2024, to commemorate the 4th yahrzeit of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and mark the dedication of the Rabbi Sacks Archive at the National Library of Israel.
United States Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew was in conversation with Rachel Sharansky Danziger.You can watch the event below:
The Guardian Angel of Jerusalem’s Children: Dr. Helena Kagan
How many people can credit themselves with establishing and developing an entire medical field? In the early 20th century, pediatric medicine practically didn’t exist in the Land of Israel. Enter Helena Kagan. With her rare combination of professionalism, hard work, and dedication, she built up the field of children's medicine in the Holy Land from scratch. This is the story Israel’s first pediatrician.
Dr. Helena Kagan. Photograph courtesy of the Kagan family
“If my hands could have achieved it, I would have strewn roses all over the streets of Jerusalem for you.” This sentence was written by a man not to his wife or lover, but to the doctor who saved his six-month-old daughter’s life.
Dr. Helena Kagan, the guardian angel of Jerusalem’s children, was a pioneer in every sense of the word. Almost everything she did was groundbreaking.
She was the first woman to receive a job offer from the medical research institute at the University of Bern. She was also the first woman to obtain a license to practice medicine in the Land of Israel, and the first pediatrician in the country. She established the first daycare center in the Holy Land, the first well-baby clinic, and the first pediatric department in an Israeli hospital.
Dr. Helena Kagan examines a baby in her clinic. Photograph courtesy of the Kagan family.
Despite all these impressive professional achievements, people who met her in person primarily remembered her for her incredible kindness, humility, and caring nature. This serious woman, whose gentle manner concealed a sharp professional mind and a strong sense of determination, saw herself as nothing more than a public servant. She never expected any rewards.
In the case of the six-month-old infant whose father wrote the opening sentence of this article, Dr. Kagan made her way to the family’s home – they couldn’t afford any other doctor – and spent forty consecutive days there monitoring their daughter’s recovery and providing necessary treatment. When the grateful parents sent her a bouquet of flowers, Helena responded with astonishment, remarking, “Buy why?”
Helena Kagan was born in 1889 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which was then part of the Russian Empire. When her father’s employers discovered that he was a Jew, they demanded that he convert to Christianity or leave the factory he managed. He left, and the family lived in poverty for years, until he was eventually able to establish an independent business on his own.
Helena’s talents were apparent even early on, but her parents couldn’t afford the costs of her education, so she was forced to stay home. During her childhood she took care to educate herself, without the aid of a teacher, and when she reached high school-age she was eventually accepted to the most prestigious school in Uzbekistan.
Helena Kagan during her childhood in Tashkent. Photograph courtesy of the Kagan family.
When her family’s financial situation improved, Helena’s parents sent her and her brother Noah to study in Western Europe. It was only when they arrived in Lausanne, Switzerland that Helena discovered she was too young to be admitted to the music studies program she had dreamed of. Not one to sit idly by, she instead enrolled as an external student (again, due to her young age) in pre-med studies. And that was that. Almost immediately, she fell in love with the profession and discovered she excelled at it.
In 1910, when she was only 21 years old, she completed her medical studies, specializing in pediatrics. That’s when she received a job offer from the faculty of medicine’s own research institute – an offer that had never been extended to any woman before, not to mention a Jewish woman.
She returned home to visit her parents, having not seen them for several years, to tell them about the coveted position she had secured. Unfortunately, she found her father on his deathbed, where he made one final request: Before starting such a job, she should travel to the Land of Israel, just for a visit. It wasn’t long before her father passed away. Helena and her mother decided not only to visit the country but to make it their permanent home. Their ship arrived in the port of Jaffa just a few short months before the start of World War I.
When they eventually arrived in Jerusalem, Helena was in for a shock. First, she was astounded by the terrible sanitary and health conditions in the city.
“The medical situation in Jerusalem in 1914 was shockingly primitive, reminiscent of an era centuries before. Ignorance and superstition ran rampant in the city, in addition to severe poverty. The sanitary conditions were dismal, with municipal services such as garbage collection available only on main roads and in a few residential neighborhoods. Public restrooms did not exist at all.”
She then soon discovered that she couldn’t practice medicine at all, at least not officially. The Ottoman government wasn’t exactly a model of progressive thought or practice, and while women could be admitted to medical studies in Europe, the Ottomans found the idea of a female doctor unthinkable.
As you can already imagine, a minor detail like lacking an official license was not going to stop Dr. Helena Kagan from doing what she believed was right.
Dr. Kagan treating a patient. She believed an entire family’s well-being needed to be taken into account to treat a child. Photograph courtesy of the Kagan family
She opened a clinic in the small house she had bought and waited for patients to arrive. But they didn’t show up. The traditionally-minded residents of Jerusalem – Jews and Arabs alike – didn’t understand why this young woman thought she could heal them. “Doctors” who had never been trained in Western medicine mocked the laboratory she set up next to the clinic: What kind of doctor was she if she needed to take her patients’ blood to diagnose diseases?
As it turned out, one particular Haredi family played a critical role in helping Kagan overcome this general lack of faith in her abilities. That family’s children later joined the ranks of one of the most extreme Ultra-Orthodox factions in Jerusalem – the Neturei Karta sect.
The Blau family’s six-year-old son Amram was very sick. None of the doctors they consulted or remedies they tried helped. In desperation, the parents turned to their last resort – the strange young woman from Europe. Kagan quickly diagnosed Amram’s illness – lobar pneumonia – and with her dedicated treatment, he recovered and grew up to become one of the leaders of the Neturei Karta movement. From that moment on, Kagan became the revered doctor of the children of Jerusalem’s Haredi community. When she later became ill herself, hundreds of families prayed for her recovery.
In addition to working in the private clinic, she took a job at the municipal hospital. Initially, she was hired as a staff nurse, and afterwards began training nurse apprentices. In the absence of running water, a laboratory, or even a separate bath for patients, she taught the young women, both Jewish and Arab, how to care for patients at the most basic level – for example by disinfecting syringes or washing their own hands. She did all of this without speaking Hebrew or Arabic, relying heavily on hand gestures and pantomime.
Separate medical care for children was not practiced in Jerusalem before Dr. Helena Kagan arrived on the scene. Photograph courtesy of the Kagan family.
When World War I broke out, conditions in the hospital deteriorated. A large proportion of the doctors were recruited into the Ottoman army, epidemics broke out, and the hospital director himself died of typhus. Kagan, who by now had proven her professional abilities beyond expectations, took over the management of the hospital until a replacement could arrive from Turkey. When a medical delegation came to review the hospital’s operations, its members could not ignore the woman who was running the institution so efficiently and with such authority – Dr. Helena Kagan finally received the coveted license to practice medicine.
She was the first woman to receive such a license from the Ottoman authorities in the Holy Land.
When the replacement from Turkey eventually arrived, Dr. Kaga lost her position as the director of the municipal hospital. However, by then she was already a well-known figure in Jerusalem, and her medical practice became more organized and public. She joined various Zionist women’s organizations, and in 1917, she took over the well-equipped clinic of Dr. Albert Ticho (who had been recruited into the Ottoman army), transforming it into the first Jewish hospital in the Land of Israel. In 1936, she established the pediatric department at Bikur Cholim Hospital, which was later named in her honor.
In addition to her professional work, which didn’t take up all her time, she looked after the city’s children in other ways as well. She believed that “there is no treatment for a child without treating the family,” and thus she established a daycare center for children whose fathers had been called up into the army and whose mothers needed to work. She also set up an orphanage in the Sha’arei Chesed neighborhood and later worked at an Arab children’s home in the Old City.
“Dr. Helena Kagan – the Children’s Guardian Angel”, from Haaretz, July 21, 1967. From the National Library of Israel’s Historical Jewish Press Collection
But Dr. Kagan’s crowning achievement was the establishment the city’s Tipat Halav (“drop of milk”) well-baby clinics. This institution, well-known in Israel today, started out of the tiny courtyard of her Jerusalem home. She discovered that a major problem affecting the health of Jerusalem’s infants was malnutrition, so she purchased a cow to provide milk for the babies under her care.
She later partnered up with Henrietta Szold and the Histadrut Nashim Ivriot (Hebrew Women’s Organization) to establish the first “Mother and Child Station” in the Old City. She and her team needed to attract women for whom the whole concept of this kind of aid seemed unnecessary and foreign (“Why would I need someone to teach me how to take care of my baby? Why should a baby who seems healthy need to visit a clinic?”). They decided to use one of the most sought-after products of the time – milk – to entice these impoverished mothers. The bottles, containing pasteurized milk (a rare commodity in the country at the time), were distributed in two ways. One was at the station itself, where mothers were encouraged to stay a little longer, weigh their babies, receive information on disease prevention, and discuss their challenges. The other was through a citywide distribution effort on the back of a donkey carrying a sign that read Tipat Halav – a drop of milk – which is the name of this network of well-baby clinics to this day.
Dr. Helena Kagan cared for all the children of Jerusalem – Arabs and Jews, religious and secular, wealthy and poor. In the Helena Kagan Collection at the National Library of Israel and in other collections belonging to public figures of that era, you can find correspondence reflecting her efforts to help children in any way possible – from purchasing a violin for a young, orphaned musician to organizing donations to purchase a sewing machine for a poor mother so she could support her children.
She pounded the pavement, going from house to house all over the city, braving Jerusalem’s unforgiving weather, during times of war and peace, growing older but never losing her vigor and passion for providing the city’s children with the opportunity to grow up healthy and well.
She received recognition for her efforts. In the 1930s, she was given a place of honor on the board of directors of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1958, she was awarded the title “Honorary Citizen of Jerusalem,” becoming the first woman to receive it. In 1975, she was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize.
In recent years, her story was made accessible to children by Israeli author Dorit Gani in her book Helena Kagan, which is part of the Hebrew series “The Israelis – A Historical Women’s Series” by Zeltner Publishing.
Though her achievements and efforts in the field of medicine were impressive by any standard, Helena Kagan was more than a doctor.
In 1936, she met the talented violinist Emil Hauser, with whom she could finally share her first passion from her days in Tashkent, long before she entered the world of medicine – music. They fell in love, got married, and built a home together, working tirelessly to bring gifted Jewish musicians from Europe to the Land of Israel, and continuing to support them even after their immigration.
Helena Kagan’s story is not only the story of a woman shattering glass ceilings and enjoying a great deal of success in her chosen profession, but also the story of a person who turned everything she was involved with, including her mere “hobbies”, into a dedicated mission. That was her way of improving the world around her and improving the lives of the people who lived in it.
She and Emil had no biological children, but thanks to her decades of work, countless children owed their lives, development, and health to Dr. Helena Kagan.
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.
"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?”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Remembering Yonatan Richter: The High-Tech Professional Who Translated Spiritual Literature
Yonatan (Shafik) Richter was an exceptional person. He lived a life full of practical achievements as well as great spiritual awareness, the kind of life that can serve as an inspiration to us all. He was a family man with a thriving career who also sought greater meaning and hoped to share his insights with others. On October 7 2023, he volunteered as a mental health supporter at the Nova festival, where his life was cut short.
Yonatan (Shafik) Richter, in a photograph from a family album, and the cover of the book he translated into Hebrew, "Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy" by Sadhguru
Right now, you are holding a book. Where do you see the book? […] The light is falling upon the book, reflecting, going into the lens of your eyes, and projected as an inverted image on your retina – you know the whole story. So, you are actually seeing the book within yourself.
Where do you see the whole world?
Again, within yourself
All human experience is one hundred percent self-created […]
This is the fundamental shift in understanding that has to happen. Do not look for a way out of misery. Do not look for a way out of suffering. There is only one way – and that is in.
[From “Inner Engineering – A Yogi’s Guide to Joy” by Sadhguru ]
“We will all die in the end; it’s just that no one knows when. The question is how we lived and what we did with the time that was given to us,” says Ahmad Diab, a close friend of the late Yonatan (Shafik) Richter, who was murdered in the Hamas attack on October 7. Richter was volunteering as a mental health supporter at the Nova festival when the attack began. “Shafik had a big influence on our lives, also thanks to this book.”
The book referred to above is Inner Engineering – A Yogi’s Guide to Joy, which Richter translated into Hebrew. As part of the National Library of Israel’s efforts to find works produced by those who were murdered on that dark day, we were surprised to come across a book written by a spiritual leader from India named Sadhguru, which was published in Hebrew in 2023. The book focuses on ways we can help ourselves and achieve happiness and well-being by adopting simple spiritual and practical understandings.
Who was this man who had undertaken such a large project in translating this guidebook for life, and was murdered so close to its publication?
We embarked on a journey to find out more about Yonatan (Shafik) Richter and discovered an exceptional man who had created for himself a life rich in both spirituality and practical achievement, a man whose life can serve as an inspiration to all of us. It seems that everything connected to Shafik was unique. His mother, widow, publisher, and a close friend all speak of him with a kind of calmness and a deep sense of gratitude for the time they shared with him.
Richter lived in Ein Hod, a small community of artists in northern Israel, which his parents helped establish. He was born and raised there. Shafik is a nickname that stuck with him from childhood, as his mother, Eli Ben Zvi, recounts, and so we will call him that as well.
“As a child, Shafik was both very physical, mischievous, jumping around, climbing, and running, and at the same time balanced and attentive,” says his mother. “Strangers often approached me and asked: ‘You’re Shafik’s mother? You should know you have the most amazing child in the world,’” she recalls, adding, “I heard this from many people throughout his life.”
During his military service in the IDF’s Mamram unit (dedicated to computing and information systems), Shafik met his wife, Doron. He became a father at a young age to two daughters – Gaya, 21, and Sol, 17 – with whom he had a special bond. “He was an amazing father, present in every aspect of their lives, and he thoroughly enjoyed fatherhood – whether he was changing diapers or being a life mentor,” Doron shares.
To make a living, Shafik embarked on a successful career in high-tech, first in the gaming industry and later independently, and was supposedly far removed from the rich spiritual world presented in the book he translated. So how does a 45-year-old high-tech professional come to translate a spiritual guidebook?
From High-Tech Professional to Translator
“One day, I sent him a video I saw on YouTube that I thought would interest him,” recalls his mother, Eli Ben Zvi. The video featured a spiritual leader by the name of Sadhguru. Shafik was immediately taken in by him and began listening to his lectures and reading everything he could about him. That very day, he ordered Sadhguru’s book and started reading it. His deep interest in the writings led him to travel to India, to Sadhguru’s ashram, where he participated in a seminar there. Studying Sadhguru’s philosophy changed Shafik’s view of reality; he connected with the guru’s spiritual path, which also included daily yoga exercises.
The book Inner Engineering allows for a deep dive and the discovery of new depths and meaning in everyday life. It is recommended for anyone who wants to live a better, more pleasant life and gain a greater understanding of life itself. It is an easy read, and often a paragraph or two gave me enough to ponder for hours at a time. In the “Translator’s Note” at the beginning of his Hebrew version, Shafik writes: “I first became acquainted with Sadhguru in 2019. I discovered a fascinating person who opened a door for me to a better and happier life. Every time I returned to the text, new aspects and depths were revealed to me. This is a book that can and should be read more than once.”
Shafik knew that many would struggle to read and understand Sadhguru’s philosophy in English and wanted to bring this knowledge to others in Israel. He ultimately decided to take on the task of translating the book into Hebrew himself.
“It wasn’t easy,” recalls Yuval Ben Mordechai, who was at the time the publisher at Astrolog Publishing House, which published the book in collaboration with Yedioth Books. It took about three years to translate since this was a volunteer project for Shafik, who worked on it in his free time. Ben Mordechai taught him the intricacies of the profession and paired him with Sigal Gefen, an experienced translation editor.
Gefen shares how surprised she was to discover that the book she was editing was not the work of a seasoned and experienced translator. “It was amazing. You couldn’t tell this was his first translation. And I could feel how close the subject was to his heart.” His mother, with whom he sometimes consulted on the translation, said, “Every sentence was meaningful to him. We would discuss it for hours, and he would go to bed, only to come back the next day with new insights about the translation of that very sentence. It was a fascinating process.”
As part of his deep exploration of Sadhguru’s philosophy, Shafik became familiar with the Isha Foundation, an international volunteer organization which Sadhguru founded (“Isha” is a Sanskrit word meaning “the formless divine”). The organization’s goal is to guide all people worldwide toward their full potential in this life, in harmony with themselves and their environment. Shafik contributed to the organization’s Israeli branch as part of a team that worked to translate Sadhguru’s content into Hebrew. In addition to translating the book, he also translated content for various social media platforms, making it accessible to anyone in Israel. That’s how he met Ahmad Diab, and the two became close friends, even traveling together to another program at Sadhguru’s ashram in India. “Shafik,” Diab recalls, “was known for his total commitment. If he got involved in something, he would do it to the fullest. He wanted to bring change to Israel, to raise awareness in society, and that was his contribution. He invested endless hours in it.”
The book was published in the summer of 2023: “Finally, all of us volunteers at Isha had a way to share with friends and family what had touched us so deeply. It was an emotional moment for the community. I remember Shafik saying to me, ‘Brother, I can’t believe this is happening…’” Right after finishing the translation of the first book, Shafik began translating Sadhguru’s second book, Karma, but he didn’t get the chance to complete it.
There is something within every human that dislikes boundaries, that is longing to become boundless […] No matter how much we achieve, we still want to be something more. If we just looked at this closely, we would realize that this longing is not for more, this longing is for all. We are all seeking to become infinite […] The moment I realized that human desire was not for any particular thing, but just to expand illimitably, a certain clarity rose within me. When I saw that everyone is capable of this, it felt natural to want to share it. My whole aim since then has been to somehow rub this experience off on other people, to awaken them to the fact that this state of joy, of freedom, of limitlessness cannot be denied to them unless they stand in the way of the natural effervescence of life.”
[From “Inner Engineering – A Yogi’s Guide to Joy” by Sadhguru]
The Infinite Volunteer
The translation was just one of many things Shafik did voluntarily, as part of his desire to contribute to a better world.
In addition to his involvement in Isha projects, Shafik also volunteered to distribute food packages to the needy, and over the last two years of his life, he found time for another volunteer initiative: a special project by the Elem organization called Anashim Tovim (Good People). As part of this project, trained volunteers attend dance raves and set up safe spaces where participants can go if they feel unwell and in need of emotional support. He attended the Nova festival as a volunteer for the organization. He was murdered there, along with Sigal and Lior, two other volunteers who were part of the same initiative. He was 48 years old.
Shafik’s translated book touched many people, even beyond the Isha community. Ben Zvi recalls one of the many messages she received after Shafik’s death. Matan Chapnizky, a musician and director of the jazz studies program at The New School in New York, wrote to her: “Yonatan translated Sadhguru’s book exactly as I had mentally translated the many conversations with him [Sadghuru] that I had heard in English. The translation is fluid, precise, light, and witty. Every word and comma received a world of attention. It’s a masterpiece.” Ben Zvi is currently in the early stages of an initiative to establish a music center in Shafik’s memory in Ein Hod. In speaking with them, it is clear that Eli and Doron are just beginning to process the enormous grief and the immense void Shafik left behind as a husband, son, and a man who did so much good in the world. “He was a mensch, a person of noble spirit, generous, considerate, and wise – and also the funniest person in the world – and much more,” adds Ben Zvi. “The book he translated is yet another echo in this world of the person he was.”
