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Franz Kafka et le sionisme

2020, Études Germaniques 75 (2020), 1 p. 157-170

Abstract

This article does not address Kafka’s Zionist sympathies but examines how his work was influenced by his Zionist friends who were members of the Praguian Bar Kochba association. Some Kafka scholars, for example, Christoph Stölzl, claim that Kafka stayed away from his friends’ Zionism because of his critical attitude towards nationalism. This article shows, on the contrary, that if Kafka distanced himself from nationalist ideas and from political Zionism, he owed it precisely to his friends. Hugo Bergmann, Robert Weltsch and Gustav Landauer were supporters of a critical cultural Zionism regarding the situation in Palestine. Kafka’s short story “Jackals and Arabs” illustrates this assertion perfectly. The article also analyses the influence of German idealism and Masaryk’s humanism on cultural Zionists and hence on Kafka.