Kafka's Jackals and Arabs

Kafka and ArabsAuthor(s): Jens Hanssen Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Autumn 2012), pp. 167-197 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/668054 Accessed: 02-11-2016 23:14 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Inquiry This content downloaded from 128.6.218.72 on Wed, 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Kafka and Arabs Jens Hanssen “It appears to me that you are still struggling with your father’s encounter.” I was taken aback, who spoke? “I think I know you but where we have met?” The bronze statue smiled: “I am sorry, I have not introduced myself; My name is Franz Kafka.” I stopped, perplexed. I did not believe what the statue said. . . . True, that was Kafka, or someone who looks a lot like him and has assumed his personality. I protested: “But Kafka has been dead for sixty five years; moreover, Kafka does not know Arabic.” The Kafka statue smiled back. “Forgive me, please, I ask you not to speak of death. As for the Arabic in which I addressed you, I learned it recently and I was forced to learn it because, in their feverish fight against Zionism, some Arab critics accused me of being a Zionist and a writer who serves Zionist ideology. I had to learn Arabic so that I could tell them that my position is the opposite of what they think. I don’t deny that I believe in Judaism that I am Jewish even though my relationship to religion and god was never compatible. As for the accusation of Zionism, it is utterly false.1 In October 1917 Martin Buber published an animal story by Franz Kafka in his monthly review Der Jude.2 Kafka’s friend and literary executor, Max Brod, recommended it, assuring Buber that Kafka’s work was among the most Jewish documents of our time.3 Kafka wrote “Jackals and Arabs” during the war-induced hiatus in Jewish immigration to Palestine, only I am deeply grateful for the criticism and suggestions on this paper from Gilbert Achcar, Atef Botros, Judith Butler, Amal Ghazal, Jonathan Gribetz, Sidra Ezrahi, Muhammad Ali Khalidi, Georges Khalil, Elias Khouri, Melanie Newton, Derek Penslar, Gabi Piterberg, Hicham Safieddine, Mai Taha, Sara Saleh, Andreas Vieth, Ines Weinrich, Natalie Zemon Davis, and John Zilcosky. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 1. Nayrouz Malek, Zuhur Kafka (Aleppo, 2000), pp. 106-7; hereafter abbreviated Z. Most German Jewish newspapers consulted in this study are accessible on www.compactmemory.de 2. See Franz Kafka, “Schakale und Araber,” Der Jude 2, no. 7 (1917–1918): 488–90. Buber also picked Kafka’s better-known “A Report to an Academy” from a list of stories Kafka pitched to Der Jude. 3. See Max Brod, “Unsere Literaten und die Gemeinschaft,” Der Jude 1, no. 7 (1916–1917): 457–67. Critical Inquiry 39 (Autumn 2012) © 2012 by The University of Chicago. 0093-1896/12/3901-0002$10.00. All rights reserved. 167 This content downloaded from 128.6.218.72 on Wed, 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 168 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs half a year before the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 committed the British government to support a Jewish national home in Palestine. The polyvalent story and its multilayered context crystallize Kafka’s relationship to Zionism and Palestine as well as his German, Jewish, and Arab scholarly reception. The current revolutionary moment in the Arab world allows us to rethink Kafka and Arabs and, at the same time, the Palestine conflict. As such, this essay contains an intellectual affinity with the revision of Kafka scholarship offered in Critical Inquiry following the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as Achmat Dangor’s haunting postapartheid novel Kafka’s Curse.4 The current attempt of the Israeli state to claim ownership over Kafka’s literary estate on the grounds that “the rightful place of the Kafka papers is in the National Library of Israel,” as its director has put it, offers additional timeliness to this essay.5 Israeli newspapers have launched a campaign supporting the repatriation of Kafka.6 This appropriation of Kafka worries Judith Butler and other Jewish critics who condemn the way the Israeli state works to determine cultural “assets” for the Jewish people while criminalizing those who criticize its practices as “liabilities” on universal grounds.7 This applies in particular to the many dissident Jewish voices that assert that Israel does not speak in their name because the apartheid 4. See O. K. Werckmeister, “Kafka 007,” Critical Inquiry 21 (Winter 1995): 468–95, and Achmat Dangor, Kafka’s Curse (Cape Town, 1997). 5. Shmuel Har Noy, director of the National Library of Israel, quoted in Florian Illies and Stefan Koldehoff, “Literarisches Erbe: Wem gehört Kafka?” Zeit Online, 21 Nov. 2009, www.zeit.de/2009/48/Kafka 6. See Reiner Stach, “Kafkas Manuskripte: Der Process gehört uns allen,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 Aug. 2010, www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/kafkas-manuskripte -der-process-gehoert-uns-allen-1573030.html. Haaretz’s Ofer Aderet has led the charge. A recent New York Times Magazine article championed the cause, too; see Elif Batuman, “Kafka’s Last Trial,” New York Times, 22 Sept. 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/magazine/26kafka-t .html?pagewanted⫽all 7. Judith Butler, “Who Owns Kafka?” London Review of Books, 3 Mar. 2011, lrb.co.uk/v33/ n05/judith-butler/who-owns-kafka. For a collection of essays by Jewish critics of Israel, see J E N S H A N S S E N is associate professor of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean history at the University of Toronto. His book publications include Fin de Sie`cle Beirut (2005) and two coedited volumes: Arab Provincial Capitals in the Late Ottoman Empire (2002) and History, Space, and Social Conflict in Beirut (2005). He is coediting the Handbook of Contemporary Middle Eastern and North African History. During his visit to Baghdad in June 2003, he filmed a short documentary on academic life in Iraq after the US invasion. He is currently conducting research on intersections between German-Jewish and Arab intellectual histories. This content downloaded from 128.6.218.72 on Wed, 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1991).10 But Jewish settlement in Palestine remained a side project for many Prague Zionists until the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1920.org/terms 169 . “Jackals and Arabs” represents a rare European account— fictional or nonfictional—in which the violent nature of Zionism’s designs on Palestine is countered by an Arab protagonist whose narrative of resistance.. and it proceeds in three steps. The Returns of Zionism: Myths.jstor. Penslar. ed. I treat “Jackals and Arabs” as a contrapuntal illumination of the historical moment in which Zionism turns from a movement of national liberation in Europe to a settler-colonial enterprise in Palestine. This content downloaded from 128. Ind.9 Pushing Botros’s analysis further. Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine. early Zionist settler-colonialism was not the same as it is in today’s Israel and Palestine. 2003). See Derek J. 2008). see Gabriel Piterberg. Zionists were not in a position to Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Under Ottoman and British rule in Palestine. I will argue. Based on his letters and diaries.8 My argument is literary. This turn did have its roots in ideas of a Jewish plantation economy and the social engineering that emerged in late nineteenth-century Europe. that Zionism is originally or inherently a colonial idea. historical. I revisit Kafka’s Prague circle of friends and associates as they gradually abandon the project of Jewish emancipation in Europe and embrace the practice of colonization in Palestine. These stories. diaries. and Scholarship in Israel (London. Gaza. See Atef Botros. I then compare “Jackals and Arabs” to other Kafka texts that interweave Jewish and colonial narratives. 1870 –1918 (Bloomington. and the Golan Heights. East Jerusalem. Kafka renders empathetically.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 system inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories discriminates against Palestinians. Here I follow Gabriel Piterberg’s thorough investigation of Zionism as settler-colonialism. Kafka: Ein ju¨discher Schriftsteller aus arabischer Sicht (Wiesbaden. 10. In what follows. 2009). To this day. I review the history of Kafka’s Arab reception using Atef Botros’s innovative recent literary study on the topic.218. The current aggressive settlement expansions have their origins in the 1967 war in which Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank. 9.72 on Wed. Finding this turn in Kafka’s lifetime challenges the view. Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon (New York. First. Finally. 8. hereafter abbreviated K.6. I argue that Kafka’s ambiguity towards Zionism has to do less with his general indecision than with his disapproval of Zionism’s colonial turn. and political. To be sure. Politics. commonly held by critics of Zionism. and letters reveal Kafka’s exceptionally irreverent and satirical treatment of Zionism. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. and the Law of Citizenship. Edward Said. the idea that the land of Palestine be shared through integration not separation of populations. Rather. this idea was first formulated in 1920s Palestine by Kafka’s circle of friends in the Brith Shalom movement. They address Kafka’s marginal position. ed. of course. as Gershon Shafir has convincingly argued. Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin.or two-state solution. The idea of return to ancestral land is common enough in colonialism. 77–88. his work’s allegorical complexity.170 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs ethnically cleanse Palestinians. as in Palestine before and after the Holocaust. 13.11 Colonialism. Yet. it designates often high-minded discourses and practices of cultural erasure or material appropriation. and Arab Jews ought to be based on the recognition of their equality and affinity.72 on Wed.12 Over six decades. Contrapuntal Illuminations: Kafka and the Non-European This article rests on three methodological elaborations. most notoriously the Law of Return. 2002). see Shalom Ratzabi. Ilan Pappe´ (London. 1973).6. Between Zionism and Judaism: The Radical Circle in Brith Shalom. or shadows.” in The Israel/Palestine Question. is not a label for brutal intentions or behavior of individuals or groups.org/terms . It matters little to displaced natives whether settler-colonialism emerged out of a penal colony of metropolitan undesirables as in Australia or French Guiana or out of mass emigration of refugees from metropolitan Europe. pp. The Zionists may have had greater historical claim to the biblical land than the French had in Algeria to a Roman past or the French Levant to the crusaders. See Maxime Rodinson.218.13 As I will show. Muhammad Ali Khalidi. Judith Butler. pp. the Law of Absentee Property. “Zionism and Colonialism: A Comparative Approach. and Gil Hochberg. See Gershon Shafir. These include—to invoke only those thinkers who are footnoted in this essay—Hannah Arendt. Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? (New York. Regardless of whether binationalism is tied to a one. Israeli colonialism after 1967 has its roots in pre-1948 Zionist settlement projects and practices. Gabriel Piterberg. and contrapuntal strategies of illuminating colonial residues. of European literature. nor could they consider apartheid laws that the Israeli state passed in the early 1950s. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. 81–96. the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has rendered the history of both societies so inseparable that a critical mass of Jewish and Arab thinkers have rediscovered binationalism—that is. 12. the opportunity for which only came in the 1947–48 war. Mahmoud Darwish. But all cases required massive population transfers in order to change the reality to fit the idea. Jews. 1999). 1925–1933 (Leiden. This content downloaded from 128.jstor. at the heart of their arguments is that the relationship between Palestinians. My entry point is Gilles Deleuze and Fe´lix Guattari’s influential essay “What Is a Minor Literature?” which was inspired by 11. For the most authoritative monograph of the binationalist group. 84. They lament that scholars have insisted on transcendental meanings and parabolic interpretations that have no relation to the writer’s positionality. 74. Moreover. p. 2009): 71–100. 6. 1883–1912 (Bern. Arabs. 17. The great contribution of Deleuze and Guattari was to challenge both the transcendentalizing and reterritorializing interpretations by linking Kafka’s solitude to Prague’s politics of language. 18. Austrian. Kabbala. as in his novel Amerika. Moreover. p. pp. and by their Czech milieu because of their literary (“paper”) language. they argue that many scholars—starting with Brod—have appropriated Kafka in “a desperate attempt at symbolic reterritorialization.jstor. See Klaus Wagenbach. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. ed. Gilles Deleuze and Fe´lix Guattari. 83–88. and the nomadic condition of humans and texts more generally. that accentuates its break from the people and will find its result only in Zionism and in such things as the ‘dream of Zion. or as a force of invasion. “What Is a Minor Literature?” in Reading Kafka: Prague. “Franz Kafka: A Reevaluation (On the Occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of his Death).72 on Wed. “Czechs. Czech.” Association for Jewish Studies Review 33 (Apr. See Hannah Arendt. Deleuze and Guattari’s celebration of Kafka’s universal solitude. This content downloaded from 128.218.14 They argue that the key to understanding Kafka is his subversive relationship to the dominant German culture in fin-de-sie`cle Prague. and alchemy. Politics and the Fin de Sie`cle. based in archetypes.18 In her “The Jew as Pariah: A 14. 1989). Jewish writers experienced a double discrimination by the German-speaking imperial elite.” Partisan Review 4 (Fall 1944): 412–22. However. Jews: Franz Kafka’s ‘Jackals and Arabs’ between Bohemia and Palestine. Deleuze and Guattari understood Kafka’s struggle in this exceptional context as representative of all people who endure alienating environments. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. 15.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 Klaus Wagenbach’s interpretation of Kafka’s musings on writing in a language in which he never felt quite at home.’”15 The tension between the universal and the particular endows minority literature like Kafka’s with the status of world literature. 16. Dana Polan (Minneapolis. in whose language they wrote. all of which were competing in late imperial Prague. and Jewish national questions as well as the emerging question of Palestine. See also Deleuze and Guattari. 80–81. trans. their valorization of Kafka’s prophecies of Europe’s totalitarian future deters them from working through the “intensity”16—their term—of the competing German.17 Hannah Arendt’s World War II essays help us to better contextualize Kafka’s work as a literary prism onto the particular political atmosphere in early twentieth-century continental Europe. See Dimitry Shumsky. Deleuze and Guattari. does not fully capture Kafka’s own metaphor of the nomad as a figure experiencing dislocation. 77–78. Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie seiner Jugend. as in his Chinese writings. Mark Anderson (New York.org/terms 171 . Germans. Kafka. 1986). 1958).6. 96. reading “Jackals and Arabs” and related texts allegorically means that they may consist of fractured. 1986). Harold Bloom (New York. “in their misery and their beauty . Benjamin. “the artist is not obliged to understand his own art. “Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of His Death. the protest of his friend notwithstanding. Lazare’s intervention in the Dreyfus affair represented a universal act of resistance against oppression everywhere. On Arendt’s interpretation of Lazare. and there is particular reason to doubt whether Kafka was capable of such understanding” (“N. “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition.” p. Harry Zohn. Jerome Kohn and Ron H.” The Jewish Writings. 24.org/terms . 288–96. they had to become more than parables. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. pp.” Theodor Herzl—particularized Jewish emancipation and thereby chose not to challenge fundamentally deeper structures of oppression. 2007). hereafter abbreviated “F.” Jewish Social Studies 4 (Jul. ed.”21 My article aims to recuperate and redeem allegory from Brod’s romantic symbolism as a means of meaningful literary expression and a method of interpreting the world. Adorno. p. as Benjamin explains. 111–40. then.23 “Kafka had a rare capacity for creating parables for himself” (“F.jstor.”24 The Kafka stories examined in this article.22 Benjamin insists on the multiple narrative layers of an allegory whose shadowed imagery is neither merely added by interpretation nor necessarily the conscious intention of an author who had.6. hereafter abbreviated “N. By contrast. Arendt. See Arendt. “Notes on Kafka. paradoxical. 1942): 233. 2–28. I return to Walter Benjamin’s cultural criticism in general and his foundational essay “Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of His Death” in particular. are not interpreted as wisdom tales with a linear. pp. Returns of Zionism. after all. Rather. “From the Dreyfus Affair to France Today. ed.” she defined French Jewish intellectual Bernard Lazare as the epitome of the “conscious pariah. Kafka’s prose sides with the outcasts.” p. trans. 97). Following Benjamin.218. Arendt (New York. p. “Some Reflections on Kafka. Kafka’s pariah is a tragic figure who is cursed by the futility of attempting an ordinary life and the pursuit of universals in oppressive structures. 1968). Theodor W. See Walter Benjamin. yet.”19 For Arendt.” in Franz Kafka. 20. Feldman (New York.” 22. 124).172 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs Hidden Tradition. Theodor Adorno shared Arendt’s contrarian assessment: “in its striving not for symbol but allegory. unified moral. 144. . ed. Adorno argues. 283–86.20 Arendt argues that unlike the heroic Lazare.” 23.” Illuminations. see Piterberg. the privileged Jewish “parvenu”—including the founder of Zionism and the self-fashioned “Moses of the fin de sie`cle. pp. instructed Brod to burn his manuscripts.72 on Wed.” Illuminations. 21. . or—following Edward Said—contrapuntal narratives. Here. This content downloaded from 128. The question of the place of Jewish identity in Kafka’s work and the 19. 28 In an oft-quoted soliloquy. 19 vols..” in Arendt und Benjamin: Texte. Politics. extend. “Who Owns Kafka?” 30. Detlev Schöttker and Erdmut Wizisla [Frankfurt. 1993). nowhere has there been any consideration of Kafka writing back at Europe as a critic of colonialism in general or of settler-Zionism in Palestine in particular.org/terms 173 . 2003). Hans-Gerd Koch. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.6. 32. 1985). ed. 66. Tagebu¨cher. 2004).26 However. antinomian terms. 162). Werkausgabe. What strikes Said about Freud’s interrogation of Moses’ Jewish identity is that. Kafka. Gelber (Tu¨bingen. 28. p. Kafka perceived this irony of “non-arrival”—the term is Butler’s31—not as a loss or a failure but as part of “the fated task of Jewry to absorb the strengths of 25. See Richtie Robertson.218. Arendt had to work to convince the influential Jewish publisher Salman Schocken. even as he was attempting to come to terms with anti-Semitism all around him. See. but proprietorial interpretations are no less ahistorical than postmodern impulses of deterritorialization. Edward W. to date (Frankfurt. 101). 31.”29 Adorno has observed that “in Freud as in Kafka the validity of the soul is excluded” (“N. Kafka saw Moses less as the embodiment of settled Jewish identity than as an exemplary community organizer and lawgiver for a land he never entered. Briefe: Kritische Ausgabe. 1982– ). Butler.”27 In his lecture “Freud and the Non-European. Tagebu¨cher. 26. Said first brought contrapuntal readings to bear on Victorian novelists like Jane Austen and Joseph Conrad in order to “draw out. 26.jstor. Ju¨rgen Born et al. 3 vols. See.30 Thus. Prague Territories: National Conflict and Cultural Innovation in Franz Kafka’s Fin de Sie`cle (Berkeley. who “was only interested in the ‘eternal values’ of Judaism. Freud and the Non-European (New York. ed. ed. and Beyond. most recently. give emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally present or ideologically represented. Dokumente. ed. Mark H. this article draws on Said’s contrapuntal method in order to illuminate the dialectic in “Jackals and Arabs” and affiliated texts between Jewish and non-European meanings. 22 September 1945. “Who Owns Kafka?” This content downloaded from 128. it was couched in nonidentitarian.25 There is also a lively scholarly debate in Israel about the nuances and varieties of Zionism that influenced Kafka and his relationship with Brod. and Scott Spector. 29. Kafka once asked himself “What do I have in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself. Culture and Imperialism (New York. 1:622. entry for 8 Jan. 2006]. p. 27. Briefe. 1914. “Hannah Arendt an Gershom Scholem. Kafka.. Zionism. Michael Mu¨ller. pp. for example. Kafka: Judaism. in a few late diary entries. Said. See Said. The Jewish context is indispensable in Kafka’s work. Instead.72 on Wed.” p.” Said significantly refines this approach and offers a provocative rereading of Sigmund Freud’s 1937 Moses and Monotheism.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 growing appeal of Zionism in the intellectual milieu of the late Habsburg empire has emerged as a central theme in literary and historical scholarship. Butler.” to publish Kafka’s and Benjamin’s “borderline” texts in America (Arendt. and Literature (Oxford. and Malcolm Pasley. Schriften. 2000). 54. taunting.” Journal of Palestine Studies 3 (Winter 1974): 3. the concept of multidirectional memory is more useful in this context.” which has recently been discredited as a polemical method that “consists of the systematic exploitation of the adversary’s most trusted sources against their grain . To the extent that contrapuntalism is a mnemonic strategy. 96–97. monotheism. p. then. Calif. p. Hochberg. .34 Said’s musical metaphor of contrapuntalism. The very fact that generations of Arab writers have drawn meaning from Kafka in unexpected ways is a testimony to the allegorical force of his work. and Gil Z. [that] strike the Jew and murder the human being. is fundamentally at odds with “counterhistory. of his identity. promises a more subtle understanding of Kafka’s relationship to the nonEuropean than Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of homeless texts can provide.174 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs humankind. Said. the more attention is paid by the Arab or the Jew to his chosen opponent. 35. 36. “Arabs and Jews. The more intense these modern struggles for identity become. Mass. 2003). Amos Funkenstein. 36. Moses and Monotheism also illuminates dialectical narratives and hyphenated identities that are buried beneath the absolutes of alterity and enmity in the Abrahamic tradition and that are suppressed in the Arab-Israeli struggle for Palestine. Kafka was bitterly aware that the pursuit of universals was threatened by “the dark depths of the zoological doctrine of race . . postcolonial explorations of those texts within the Western canon “which brush up unstintingly against historical constraints. 2007). N. Reinscribing Moses: Heine.”37 Said’s interpretative method. . In Spite of Partition: Jews. 1993). .. pp. Said. Calif. [for] the distortion of the adversary’s self-image. See Gil Anidjar. Freud.” For this legacy.” However. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford. 1997). Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley. 33. or partner. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. through the deconstruction of his memory. Mass. Arabs. and Jan Assmann. 1992).J. pp.. and Schoenberg in a European Wilderness (Cambridge. 27.”36 Contrapuntal illuminations plant the seeds—“in all sorts of unforeseen proleptic ways”—for often deliberately antithetical.jstor. then.218. . . . and the Jewish people as a way to expose the constructedness and the false premise of European persecution of Jews. the Arab: A History of the Enemy (Stanford.. Quoted in Bluma Goldstein. 2009). 24. harassing. 34.6. fighting. 32. Freud and the Non-European. see Michael Rothberg.. and the Limits of Separatist Imagination (Princeton. The Jew.33 For Said. 37.”32 Freud insisted on the Egyptian origins of Moses. 58. “Moses is still a current reality. Reinscribing Moses. This content downloaded from 128.org/terms . Kafka.. as Said already recognized during the Arab-Israeli war of 1973: “Neither people can develop without the other there. See Goldstein.72 on Wed.”35 Rather. 6. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 Reading Kafka in the Middle East: From Admiration to Rejection to Inspiration The history of Kafka’s reception in the Arab world. who considered him “a great mediator between the West and the East” (K. 63). Taha Husayn (1889–1973). 32).jstor. A Copt who was married to the niece of Ahmad Shawki. Henein took Kafka eastwards to Egypt. p. 39. Cyril Glasse´. Paradoxically. and Magian. Christian.218. he saw in Kafka a means of coming to terms with “the impossibility of a connection between man and God” (K. the year Benjamin published his influential interpretation of Kafka. a translation of whose poetry was. was considerably more influential in the Arab world. Henein moved in the surrealist circles of Andre´ Breton. 39 The leading Iranian modernist Sadeq Hedeyat undertook a similar journey with Kafka in the 1940s. Calif. Henein arrived in Paris in 1934. One man intelligent without religion. 33). Jew. p. which Botros has recently reconstructed. on Kafka’s shelf. And one religious without intellect. through the autonomy of thinking and the act of writing (K. 251. 2001). Around the time that Arendt carried Kafka’s and Benjamin’s legacies to America. Husayn compared Kafka with his intellectual idol. 278. The first Arab to grapple with Kafka was the Egyptian Georges Henein (1913–1973). See Wagenbach. the ascetic and skeptic Abu ‘Alaa al-Ma‘arri. Blind from early childhood and temporarily an intellectual pariah because of his critique of the early Islamic canon.. p. an opponent of nuclear armament—Henein and his group of Cairene surrealists stood for a form of art that postulated the kind of unconditional human freedom that was so powerfully expressed during the recent uprising in Egypt. where he shaped critiques of bourgeois and religious conventions. who was exposed to Kafka’s The Castle and The Trial during his studies at the Sorbonne. p. The second Egyptian admirer of Kafka.72 on Wed. Two make Humanity’s universal sect. much like Kafka himself. Husayn and Hedeyat interpreted Kafka’s skepticism towards Jewish tradition as evidence of his rebellious secularism. As a committed antifascist—and. This content downloaded from 128. surprises both for its early beginnings and its diversity. The question of Kafka’s theology and secularism has divided Jewish 38. after Hiroshima. the foremost neo-classicist poet of his age.org/terms 175 . The New Encyclopedia of Islam (Walnut Creek. Kafka’s “sinister literature” helped him to translate his pessimism into active life.38 Both writers would likely have enjoyed the Abbasid philosopher’s oft-quoted lamentation that: They all err—Moslem. Kafka. p. in fact. Kafka helped Husayn and Hedeyat build a bridge to European culture and simultaneously to valorize the pre-Islamic period.41 Since the 1950s. attested that “in the sixties Kafka was treated as a sacred figure who fascinated us” (K. Literary critics in Cairo. Hedeyat committed suicide shortly after the publication of his landmark study. Samuel Beckett. Kafka’s Message. Gamal Ghitani. Benjamin. Conversation with Elias Khoury. 1991). See Iris Bruce..42 For example. 43. a more defensive and biographical Kafka reception emerged. 99–123). p. While Husayn drew lifeaffirming conclusions. 2010). Sadeq Hedayat: The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer (London. and Albert Camus. This content downloaded from 128. together with Bertolt Brecht. Mass. pp. Throughout. 34–44). 170–72.72 on Wed.43 After the devastating military defeat by Israel in 1967.6. and Beirut engaged in a war of interpretation over the question of whether or not Kafka was a Zionist. one of today’s leading Arab novelists. owed much to Kafka’s literary form. it was his character Joseph K.176 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs scholarship since Benjamin and Scholem’s public exchange..org/terms . increasingly from the German original. Brecht Rezeption im Irak. and Scholem (Cambridge. Both Middle Eastern authors could identify with the conditions of entrapment in which Kafka’s protagonists found themselves. 107). postwelfare states (see K. pp. 1991). Necessary Angels: Tradition and Modernity in Kafka. 6 June 2011. Berlin. Damascus. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. Numerous translations. from The Trial—not primarily Kafka himself—who became the embodiment in Arabic literature and popular culture of the Arab’s sense of entrapment. were dominant influences on vanguardist and absurdist Arabic literature. in Syrien und Ägypten seit den sechziger Jahren bis 2008 (Berlin. See also Homa Katouzian. Arab authors like Sunallah Ibrahim began to draw on Kafka’s themes and style to engage in literary critiques of authoritarian. Moreover. 2007).218. 42.44 The opposing camp turned the theological appropriation of Kafka as the last 40. 41. See Robert Alter. which was the medium of choice of such political and social engagement. pp. See Najaat Essa Hassen.jstor. 44. in 1951 (see K. Wisc.40 In the Muslim context. The Arab engagement with Kafka became part of the symbolic battle over the root causes of the loss of Palestine. From the late 1960s. It came to be located in the intellectual elite’s failure to realize that uncritical adoption of Western culture opened the gates to cultural alienation. granted Kafka’s work a broader public in the Arab world. Kafka and Cultural Zionism: Dates in Palestine (Madison. the Arabic short story. Baghdad. Kafka. The camp that claimed Kafka was a Zionist and that his work pointed at his desire to emigrate to Palestine also warned that his musings about the biblical land of Canaan and his “Workers without Possession” of 1918 were affirmations of the socialist settlements of kibbutzim. Arab reviewers considered Zionism a movement of biblical salvation and not one of national struggle against violent ethnic nationalisms in Europe (see K. 46. Botros reveals misquotations following the notorious work of the Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy and mistakes in Arabic translations of the story.” Botros shows that the Arab reception was divided over the question of whether Kafka’s story approved or castigated the colonization of Palestine.org/terms 177 .218. The inmate-protagonist. the more he “felt as though [Kafka] wrote about my own life” (Z. 172–226). Jamal alHalabi. his book gives the misleading impression that the obsession with Kafka’s Zionism after 1967 diminished his literary appeal.46 Yet.45 Botros found it graver still that all too often the Arab reception of Kafka was ignorant of the history of European Jewry. which chronicles his immersion in Kafka’s works.” evidence that he was an anti-Zionist who exposed the rotten roots of Zionism.jstor. al-Ma‘rifa. Botros’s own misdating of the declaration to 9 November 1917 is a minor infelicity in comparison. p. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. particularly in “Jackals and Arabs. and writes short stories. Once the Kafka statue disavows Zionism during their first en45. The story takes place in a mental asylum in an Arab country and among an opposition group of exiles in Paris. One day Kafka starts communicating with him. The more his family pressures him to return home. However. 199). Anti-Semitism the way Kafka experienced it was animated by race theories and. Botros offers important critiques of the shortcomings of dominant trends in Kafka’s reception in the Arab world. 1951). al-Aqlam. which contained “tendentious semantic shifts” to religious vocabulary. See Arendt. and al-Adab focused on Kafka’s “Jackals and Arabs. as Hannah Arendt has argued. To acquiesce to this interpretation would be to play into the hands of Israel’s cultural imperialism. pp. Some of them saw in Kafka’s work. was sent to France to prevent a marriage his wealthy politician father deemed below his status. Arab critics have disregarded the specificity of modern anti-Semitism. There he keeps a diary.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 prophet of Israel on its head and argued that the use of Kafka for Zionist purposes should not be confused with the work itself. p. One prominent Syrian novelist who addresses this obsession is Nayrouz Malek.72 on Wed. 21).6. Lively debates in leading Arabic-language journals like al-Hilal. Kafka’s Flowers is a daring work of regime criticism published during the brief Damascus Spring of 2000. as well as its erroneous dating to after the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 (K. differed from medieval Christian hatred of Jews. The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York. In his meticulous reconstruction of anti-Zionist interpretations. This content downloaded from 128. ” Al-Qasim explained to Darwish. we write poetry. The correspondence between two of the most important poets of the Palestinian resistance in the mid-1980s is another example. too. more generally. he gasps “didn’t I tell you so?” as if to say that for all their professions of support the family of nations considers Palestinians as a burden. But the more intricate the tunnel gets the more paranoid the mole becomes that there is a beast outside that audibly pursues him. I thank Hicham Safieddine for pointing me to this passage. and. In the end.”47 Al-Qasim’s moving plea to Darwish to keep writing also referred to another Kafka work. 68. p.org/terms . and the hypocrisy of Arab regimes. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. the massacres of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila.218. This content downloaded from 128. the protagonist is forced to return home but escapes from his family’s control by checking into the mental asylum where he goes by the name Kafka. .jstor. .178 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs counter—as quoted at the top of this essay—he admits to Kafka: “I found myself in your writings. Al-Qasim reminded Darwish of Kafka’s “ravaging” power as a fellow pariah by way of an allegory in which Kafka gives a “terrifying speech” on the podium of the United Nations. This human beetle. his relationship to his father. will get back up and give birth to a normal human being despite all the civilized beasts turning against us. al-Rasa’il (Beirut.” in Mahmud Darwish and al-Qasim. The al-ju‘al al-bashri (human beetle) is a direct allusion to Metamorphosis. Kafka is turned inwards. . . . turned on its back unjustly. But. Kafka’s harrowing tale of the fate of the breadwinning son who wakes up one morning in his bedroom as an ugly beetle and who. and we rebelled. The Burrow. and aggressively.72 on Wed.” Before the imaginary Kafka leaves the “hypocritical lectern” and returns to his absolute human solitude. nevertheless. treacherously. During their widely publicized exchange. 109).or molelike creature who exhausts himself in building a maze of underground tunnels and chambers in search of protection from a hostile world above. Kafka becomes the protagonist’s regular interlocutor and mentor as he tries to work through his writer’s block. “Kafka saw. 1990). the burden of humanity in the face of violence. The story’s narrator is a badger. long condemned by their deformation during the nakba of 1948. . I felt like you were living inside of me” (Z.6. is constantly worried about being a burden to his family. p. Samih al-Qasim. Oblivious to the applause from the General Assembly. Al-Qasim 47. “contemplating that human beetle helpless on its back. we believed and rebelled. We saw. “this beetle is you and me and us and them. al-Qasim intoned. Samih al-Qasim invoked Kafka to assuage Mahmud Darwish’s painful sense of the futility of poetry in exile after the Israeli siege of West Beirut. And despite everything. “Lan yaflit ahad min shahwatna. they try to incite the ensnared traveler to cut the Arabs’ throats with a rusty pair of scissors. the blood-thirsty jackals return and pursue “their profession.” In the final third of the story.6. This content downloaded from 128. breathable air.”49 A study of the text and context of “Jackals and Arabs” highlights the general pitfalls of reducing literature to autobiographical or political manifestos on the one hand or to transcendental truths on the other. a view across the horizon cleansed from them.” And still. believe and say. Kafka offers an allegorical vocabulary with which to express resistance to one’s plight.218. Ibid.” He explains to the surprised visitor that it is “well-known” that these “fools” offer these scissors to every European “as long as there are Arabs. say and believe. It also suggests that the stakes of reading Kafka in the contemporary Arab world are higher than Botros’s book allows for. 7 (1917): 488–90. Kafka’s work is part of the Arab political lexicon precisely because many Arabs feel they have experienced his fiction as reality. categorized “Jackals and Arabs”—along with “Investigations of a Dog”—as one of his ironic sto48.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 appealed to Darwish to break out of this kafkaesque paradox through steadfastness: “This burrow must end—we just have to walk. . no. .72 on Wed. Walter Sokel. so claims the head jackal. lamentations. We have no choice but to see that distinct flicker of light at the end of the dark tunnel. “Schakale und Araber. “cleanse” the kin.jstor. aren’t they? And how they hate us. Text-immanent readings have concocted commonplaces such as the incommensurability between matter and spirit or the dialectic structure of human existence. Through tirades. and flatteries. the Arab leader of the caravan cracks his whip and “laughs as cheerfully as his clan’s modesty permitted. They ingratiate themselves by calling him the long-awaited savior from their submission to the Arabs. crawl.org/terms 179 .”48 This literary exchange is an evocative instance of the appeal Kafka and his work have for outcasts and victims of history like these two Palestinian poets. “end the quarrel that divides the world. 49.” Der Jude 2. This would. reclaim our strength seed by seed and rise up step by step. Kafka.” demanding that the jackals give him “the scissors and have done with it.” the European narrator passes through an oasis where a pack of obtrusive jackals haunt him. “Jackals and Arabs”: A Postcolonial Allegory? In “Jackals and Arabs. The great German expert of Kafka’s literature. “we love them for that.” and give “us peace from the Arabs. .” The story ends with the enigmatic comment by the Arab: “Wonderful animals. insists the Arab. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.” And when he brings the cadaver of a camel. 3 vols. The literal term animal story appears to avoid the moralist baggage of fables. Sander Gilman saw in the animal story a parody of Jewish stereotypes.org/terms . He distinguishes them from the better-known tragedies The Judgment.50 The reluctance of most Kafka scholars to acknowledge that “Jackals and Arabs” is about the question of Palestine is bewildering. ed. 1995). 1974). See also William C. and Moral Stance in Kafka’s ‘A Crossbreed’ and ‘Jackals and Arabs. Kafka. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.Y. Glatzer (New York. Even the few analyses that acknowledge the centrality of Zionism read it as a deterritorialized parable. spoke to them: “Now I can already look at you calmly. Jews.’” in Kafka’s Creatures: Animals. p.55 On the contrary. “‘Czechs. 70. and we know that already. he insisted on calling it an “animal story” and not—as Buber suggested—a parable (see K. and Jens Tismar. Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox (Ithaca. “Kafkas ‘Schakale und Araber’ im Zionistischen Kontext Betrachtet. Brod. See also Hadea Nell Kriesberg. Grete Schaeder.” “all these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible..51 More recently. The Complete Stories.180 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs ries. He also considered it indicative of both Kafka’s Jewish self-hatred and his projection of European anti-Semitism onto his Arab protagonist. Yet. less convincingly. 457. U This content downloaded from 128. dog. 51.72 on Wed.”56 As Benjamin has pointed out. 1972–75).52 Kafka loathed abstractions and fought his publisher tooth and nail over the title of “Jackals and Arabs. p.6. N. 1966). Sokel. and Dogs Not Allowed’: Identity. Conversely. Hybrids. 53. 90). Martin Buber. Nahum N. 56. I do not eat you anymore.’” Monatshefte 59 (Spring 1967): 13–18. Boundary. p. Rubinstein. p. mole—one looks up in fright and 50. ¨ ber Franz Kafka (Frankfurt. Franz Kafka: The Jewish Patient (New York. See Sander Gilman.” Briefwechsel aus sieben Jahrzehnten.53 As Kafka cautioned in “On Parables. pp. misplacing Kafka’s Arabs as a European Wirtsvolk (host-nation). Kafka once looked at some fish in a Berlin aquarium shortly after he had become a vegetarian. 21. “Franz Kafka an Martin Buber. 33–52. 1:494. The Metamorphosis. 2010). See Walter H. and Other Fantastic Beings. 1964). that the story is a parable in which the jackals represented Kafka’s unease about his own personality and the relationship with his father. Franz Kafka—Tragik und Ironie: Zur Struktur seiner Kunst (Munich. “When one encounters the name of the creatures—monkey. 54. 150–53. See Sokel.218. ed. and if we accept Brod’s account.” Thus. 1995). see Heinz Politzer. as Sokel has argued. ed. pp.jstor. It is important to note that Kafka chose not to use the technical term Fabel. (Heidelberg. 52. he also determined. Kafka. 55. “Kafka’s ‘Jackals and Arabs. Marc Lucht and Donna Yarri (New York. or The Castle. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.”54 Kafka’s rejection of the category of parable for his first two stories with animal protagonists suggests that he did really care about animals as animals—not just as masks of his own character traits.” Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 19 (1975): 306–23. The Trial. Colonialism. 1918. 58. 1992).6. may have felt threatened by postcolonial approaches and disqualified them as bespoilers of great literature.72 on Wed. 122). 61. On Kafka as an animal-liberation writer. and they ordinarily speak for circumscribed constituencies. 59. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins [Cambridge. This content downloaded from 128.jstor. In a Kierkegaard-inflected aphorism about religion and historical evolution. In it a colonial officer extols the virtues of his justice and 57. trans. “In the Penal Colony. for example. 1969).” written at the outbreak of World War I and published in 1919.58 Such analytical recuperations from within the Western literary canon have been the hallmark of postcolonial critique ever since Octave Mannoni and Aime´ Ce´saire reinterpreted Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a complex and gripping tale of colonial conquest and Caribbean resilience. 4 (2008): 365–89. and have come to conceive of the down-home Kafka as an avid literary traveler. See Caliban. Benjamin and Adorno realized early on that Kafka’s approach offered a dialectic renewal of venerable traditions through negation.” Germanic Review 83. ed. Kafka’s animals command reader identification. and the Traffic of Writing (New York. ed. Une Tempeˆte: D’Apres “La Tempeˆte” de Shakespeare: Adaption pour une the´atre ne`gre (Paris. Kafka mocks Abraham’s flight into eternity for mistaking his own “spiritual poverty” for earthly monotony. no. And in a formulation reminiscent of Freud’s late style. Early Zionist appropriations of the Caliban figure were inconsistent. and.60 But contrapuntal reinterpretations have recently arrived in Kafka scholarship. 1991]. See Sebastian Wogenstein. the method assumes neither total religious submission to the biblical ur-father nor total interpretative control over his historical legacy (Kafka. Kafka’s constructive destruction promises to reconstitute the “notoriously and uncommonly manifold” world we inhabit. The Blue Octavo Notebooks. 1950). Brod. As creatures prone to reflect on a recessive past. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. See. and Antisemitism. 2003). as well as a place-sensitive and race-conscious “constructive destruction”—aufbauende Zerstörung is Kafka’s original methodological term—that makes productive use of the violent geohistorical. entry for 26 Feb. Psychologie de la colonisation (Paris. Kafka’s Travels: Exoticism. Abrahamic space in which Kafka decided to set this particular story.218. he adds that animals are “the receptacles of the forgotten . see Kafka’s Creatures. p. as such. 55). In this context. . [who have] the greatest opportunity for reflection” in Kafka’s work (“F. 132). evokes a morally empty and self-destructive colonialism.” p.org/terms 181 . like Harold Bloom.57 Attributing remarkable timing and uncanny prescience to “Jackals and Arabs” is not an excuse to burden Kafka with a clairvoyance of subsequent events. Zionism.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 realizes that one is already far away from the continent of man” (“F. See John Zilcosky.59 Avengers of the Western canon. The concept is also not dissimilar to the deconstructionism associated with Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida.” p. too. “Jewish Tragedy and Caliban: Arnold Zweig. . 60. Harold Bloom (New York.61 For example. Octave Mannoni. and there are traces of aufbauende Zerstörung in Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History and Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. Rather it invites a recuperation of the original context. and Aime´ Ce´saire. See Kafka. pp. Gilman. both physical and discursive. 18–19.63 The African facial features of the condemned military servant also suggest that Kafka was thinking of colonial violence. In der Strafkolonie. the colonial officer straps himself onto the torture machine.64 As the officer relays the case—“simple like all of them”—the condemned was accused of dereliction of duty.62 In the process.182 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs describes the horrific torture to which a waiting prisoner is going to be subjected. After the traveler-narrator casts doubts on the method of punishment. In der Strafkolonie: Eine Geschichte aus dem Jahre 1914.” Here the narrator of the report. pp. in which he imagines how the alienated African performers at world exhibitions must have been affected by their return home.org/terms . ed. This postcolonial reading of the ape’s fate is supported by Kafka’s diary entry of 17 December 1917. “The Language of the Machine: A Postcolonial Reading of Kafka. “Kafka’s Critique of Colonialism. a chimpanzee who is captured on the Gold Coast. the worn-out torture apparatus breaks down and mangles the officer to death. on the brutality of captivity and the dehumanizing process of becoming like humans. Moreover. The ape takes no joy from his growing fame as he realizes that he belongs neither in imperial Germany nor anymore in his Gold Coast home. and Margaret Kohn. for example. This content downloaded from 128. reaching such levels of perfection that his trainers suffered mental breakdowns. See. The ape turns survival strategies into great stage performances of imitation. Klaus Wagenbach (Berlin.72 on Wed.3kohn. muse. 66. 63.218. 3 (2005).” Theory and Event 8. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. judge.jstor. 1975). 32. he reports. The Blue Octavo Notebooks. and executioner. See Kafka. the officer is moved to self-punishment in an attempt to validate the logic of justice to the disbelieving but agonizingly passive European traveler-narrator.edu/journals/theory_and_event/ v008/8.jhu.” Journal of the Kafka Society of America 20 (1996): 42–54. the prisoner displayed cannibalist instincts—or what Frantz Fanon has identified as the classic French racist stereotype of black bestiality—as he threatens his colonial master: “Throw away that whip or I’ll eat you up. Instead of providing the expected ethnographic account of his life back in Africa.html 65. The setting of the story in the tropics of the French empire has evoked Devil’s Island. no. sardonically. Having acted as prosecutor.6. where Captain Alfred Dreyfus was incarcerated following the infamous anti-Semitic travesty of justice. is invited by Hamburg’s liberal scientific establishment to give a public lecture on his former life. See Karen Piper. 68–88.66 This interpreta62. Franz Kafka.” the animal story that Buber picked for publication along with “Jackals and Arabs. p. 64. Kafka.”65 This dual evocation of anti-Semitic and colonialist injustice is also present in “A Report to an Academy. key to the Zionist mantra to “make the desert bloom” out of which later the slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land” emerged. Subhi Sa‘id in the Damascene journal al-Ma‘arifa. In this story. 1700 –1900 (Berkeley. the Chinese are also “among Kafka’s ancestors. p. in fact. S.71 For one. pp. Quoted in Leo Löwenthal. 70. Some have lamented that they are cast in the stereotypical role of a camel driver and that the story is set in the desert. Rediscovering Palestine. nomadic enemies to the north. 77.C. 222. the point is that colonial mimicry can illuminate the Jewish condition in Europe and vice versa. This content downloaded from 128. a national majority is screaming for justice. See. 173–76. p.” pp. 69. Here. Critical Theory and Frankfurt Theorists (New Brunswick.”69 Whatever their other disagreements. 120). indeed. the narrator avers that the construction of the Great Wall was a mere ruse to cement social cohesion where all emperors had failed..68 The story is also interlaced with critiques of Orientalism and European appropriation of China at the time. 71.” and Kafka avoided the European stereotype of the “characterless. generally Arab commentators have concurred that “Jackals and Arabs” is set in Palestine and that the Arabs are really Arabs (fig. when. 1995). too. Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China” (1918) has undergone a similar contrapuntal reassessment from the perspective of Chinese history.218. which Kafka wrote in the weeks after completing “Jackals and Arabs. On late Ottoman Palestine. Rather.72 on Wed.org/terms 183 .” a contemporary of Benjamin’s and literary critic of the Frankfurt school linked colonial China and Palestine. for example. N.70 The Orientalist imagination was. Leo Löwenthal compared Zionist policies in Palestine to the conditions that led to the outbreak of the Chinese Revolution in 1925 and warned “that Arab youths today are studying at European universities and working to prepare for the hour that has now struck in China. that is standardized” Chinese (“K. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.” a Chinese scholar—Kafka’s only non-European human narrator— reflects on a crumbling empire and dispels the Chinese imperial myth of eternal. But those Arab commentators who have claimed that Kafka was a Zionist author who openly despised Arabs in “Jackals and Arabs” and see in it a British-Zionist conspiracy have misread the text. 68.67 But.J. p. as Benjamin reminded us.6. see Beshara Doumani.. See Rolf Goebel. 1997). quoted in K. Palestine was remarkably urbanized in the late Ottoman period.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 tion is not to negate the Jewish referentiality of the story or deny the significance that it originally appeared in Der Jude.jstor. 1). 136–37. In a 1925 essay entitled “The Lessons of China. Instead. The short story has been viewed as the first in which Kafka dealt with the history of the Jewish people. See Robertson. Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus. Kafka. 117. the depictions of Arabs in the 67. 134. 1989). Constructing China: Kafka’s Orientalist Discourse (Columbia. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. and it would be anachronistic to infer that it reflected BritishZionist connivance.” poor. 488. Although the Arabs are haughty tormentors of the jackals.184 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs FIGURE 1. both traveler-narrators are part of the crisis. what would today be considered ethnic cleansing. Old New Land. Lotta Levensohn (New York. This content downloaded from 128.” the traveler-narrator in “Jackals and Arabs” is drawn into an unfolding.72 on Wed. and “sick people” (see K. and when at the end the narrator climbs into his boat to flee the scene he gestures to prevent the condemned from boarding to safety. 1987). like The Castle or The Trial. 219)72—come out of the mouth of the head jackal. “Utopian Zionism or Zionist Proselytism? A Reading of Herzl’s Altneuland. Similar to some of Kafka’s major stories. Kafka’s Arab stands—problematically “high and white”73 —in the literary centre of a leading Zionist journal. Kafka. In “In the Penal Colony” the prisoner is silent—or inarticulate—throughout. Rather.” p. In “Jackals and Arabs” the native—absent in the penal colony—who talks back to the jackals is actually the one exerting corporal violence in self-defence against the jackals’ threat of murder. As in “In the Penal Colony. they are not the masters of the narrative. p. 73. trans.org/terms . Theodor Herzl. p. violent situation.” Journal of Palestine Studies 30 (Summer 2001): 55–68. They are one of the reasons the traveler-narrator is ultimately turned off by the jackals’ murderous scheme. See. their right to exist is not questioned. Neither is omniscient or beyond reproach.jstor. On the con72. Muhammad Ali Khalidi. “Schakale und Araber. They oscillate between sympathy and embarrassment as the French officer and the head jackal try to convince them of the justness of their inhumane causes.6. in particular.218. 44. The first-person narrator and the ensuing triangular observer-tormentor-tormented plot of the story are significant in other ways. “Two Animal Stories. story—which resemble Theodor Herzl’s descriptions of Palestinians in his utopian novel Altneuland (1902) as a “dirty. The relationship between the European traveler and the jackals is hardly harmonious.” excerpt from Der Jude 2 (1917). Though far from a sympathetic characterization. instead of the nomadic figure. Nachgelassene Schriften und Fragmente. Kafka. qumsiyeh. “including one called ‘The Pit of Babel’” (Alter. On Kafka’s humor. 75. Necessary Angels. ed. 1880 –1948 (Los Angeles.” Harper’s Magazine 295 (July 1998): 23–27. he had fed the camel. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. Columbia University. Tel Aviv.org/yitzhakepstein. Yitzhak Epstein. and the Struggle for Palestine.78 Kafka’s non-Bedouin Arab. high and white. p. Robert Alter notes Kafka’s tendency elsewhere to subvert biblical texts. evoked a sense of land entitlement that the label “Bedouin” would have denied. despite everything.” Qumsiyeh: A Human Rights Web. p. Mark LeVine. came by me. Even if both connoted desert dwelling in Orientalist literature. 124. 76.72 on Wed. 2010). It suggests to Kafka that the terms Bedouin and Arab were not interchangeable. Kafka’s Arab protagonist is characterized by a certain generosity and a good deal of kafkaesque gallows humor. 2 vols.74 Kafka’s original. and Jews in the ‘Arab-Zionist’ Encounter” (PhD diss. 184. see David Foster Wallace. introduces a new specific vocabulary among multiple registers for stereotyping and essentializing Arabs. eliminating a place name for the oasis—whether consciously fictitious or possibly real—blocks potential biblical-Babylonian readings. This content downloaded from 128. Malcolm Pasley. 1:276. 1993). “The Hidden Question.”75 “Gemalja” is unlikely to connote an actual “beautiful” oasis (jamaliyya in EnglishArabic transliteration).218.77 Bedouins were not treated as obstacles to the colonization of Palestine on account of their vagrant (and therefore “unproductive”) presence.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 trary. hand-written draft of the story sheds new light on its subtlety.79 When Kafka’s Arab protagonist explains the situation in the last third of the story.jstor.” see Jonathan Gribetz. Some settler-Zionists at the time considered Bedouins as lost Jewish tribes. Christians. 79. 74). The first three sentences contain two significant strike-outs: “We were camping in the oasis Gemalja. Kafka’s change of heart to insert the ethnonym. On the “eccentric” Zionist idea that “the majority of the seemingly Muslim-Arab population of Palestine was in fact Jewish in ethnic origin and could consciously become Jewish by nationality again. Rather. A Bedouin An Arab. “Defining Neighbors: Muslims. Kafka’s Arab enjoys a level of agency not even accorded to the 74. 2005). (Frankfurt. The companions slept. Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa. “Laughing with Kafka.6. p.org/terms 185 . 78. Arabs in Palestine emerged as a problem and as “the hidden question” in the Zionist literature of the day.. But it does root the narrative presence of the people of the oasis. however.76 The second correction is what makes the text so political. he sees through the jackals’ attempt to instrumentalize the European in order to cleanse Arabs from the land. The Arab’s perspicacity stands in marked contrast to the head jackal’s defamation of his people. 77. ” The Question of Palestine (New York. 56–114. But Brenner also had few good things to say about the native population. 82. His fiction was structured by cycles of fear and violence.80 Kafka’s Arab feels. 85. See Yfaat Weiss. “Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims. in their tales.84 it had to serve the goal of increasing Jewish settlement to levels on par with the native Arab population. The complexity of his Arab character stands in stark contrast to the way Zionists in and outside Palestine treated its native inhabitants. He caused a stir in 1909 when he challenged the domination of the diasporic Jews over “the new free Jews. 86. which the author recognized as the necessary result of two peoples struggling over one land. The Returns of Zionism.jstor. “the question of our Jewish life . Brenner’s approach was more pessimistic.. with very few exceptions such as the Orientalist portrayal of the token Arab. 39.81 Herzl had inserted Reschid Bey into Altneuland merely to validate Zionist colonization. [nor even] the survival of Judaism. “the disappearance of the Arabs in the novel.”82 By comparison. and convinces. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. Reschid Bey. pp. The Arab in Israeli Literature (Bloomington. Smilansky early insisted that coexistence must be based on a “binationalism of strength”. He admitted on 25 October 1923 that “as a novel I do not enjoy the book very much. he argued. See Said. As Piterberg has pointed out recently.72 on Wed. hear-say and fantasies were This content downloaded from 128.org/terms . 21. Kafka strained to read Brenner’s 1920 Breakdown and Bereavement in the Hebrew original. I don’t know why. Piterberg. p. p. 84. is a pivotal point that exposes the literary and political imagination of the fin de sie`cle sovereign settler. hesitates.83 Arabs invariably lack the will to autoemancipation that rendered Zionism superior to them. “Central European Ethnonationalism and Zionist Binationalism. p. Late in life.”85 This affair was a first manifestation of settler-Zionism turning the negation of exile against its diasporic leadership. .86 The solution Brenner and his generation of socialist immigrants from Eastern Europe envisaged was complete separation between 80. 2008). Becoming Hebrew: The Creation of a Jewish National Culture in Ottoman Palestine (Oxford..186 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs handful of binational Zionists who went to Palestine in order to overcome the ethnic-majority logic they endured in Central Europe. I have always been awestruck by Brenner.218. Quoted in Arieh Bruce Saposnik. 35–44. thinks. Ibid. 1972). . the literary output of skeptical settlers like Hebrew writers Moshe Smilansky and the gifted Yosef Haim Brenner range from fascination with the assumed purity of the nomadic Bedouin to envy and fear of the rootedness of Arab life in Palestine.6. 83.” Jewish Social Studies 11 (Fall 2004): 93–117. But. male and female Arab figures are tragically stuck in timeless honor codes and obey their alleged cultural laws of predestination. Ind. .” In Palestine. 13–21. is not the question of Jewish religion . pp. . 81. 209. See Gila Ramras-Rauch. 1989). ed. “Zionism. 162–81. the European traveler-narrator intervenes by raising his hand.6. 2006).. And ‘sorrow in Palestine’?” (Kafka. canine counterparts in Europe. ed. in a speech on the Yiddish language that Kafka delivered in Prague in 1912 in honor of a group of actors from Poland he admired. See also Alter. rootless people. He even had the chutzpa to argue that Western Jews needed Eastern Jews’ Yiddish culture much more for their cultural regeneration than the other way round. Jewish Dogs: An Image and Its Interpreters. See Shafir. 2005). Steven E. Continuity in the CatholicJewish Encounter (Stanford. See Kenneth Stow. Ivan Davidson Kalmar and D. 1800 –1923 (Madison. 86–90. his sorrow was always spoken of.” pp. 263–66.90 In this extraordinary public lecture. effectively building—in Geshon Shafir’s typology—a Zionist variant of a pure settlement colony in Palestine. Penslar (Hanover. the Arab treats the disoriented European traveler to a smug comparison: “They are our dogs.91 Prague Zionism and Kafka’s Exceptionalism From the perspective of the victims of Zionism. Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness. in a gesture reminiscent of the European’s in “In the Penal Colony. p.jstor. Reading Kafka.” in order to protect the jackal from the Arab’s whip. The Arab’s explanation of the jackals’ behavior also hints at the ironic paradox that the struggle for freedom should occur outside of Europe. pp. Necessary Angels. 91. Kafka anticipates eloquent critiques of secularist Zionists’ Orientalism. See Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin.72 on Wed. Austrian.” airy. pp. “The Zionist Return to the West and the Mizrahi Jewish Perspective. 1982). Indeed.” in Orientalism and the Jews. 88.H.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 settler and native populations. See Anderson.89 On the contrary. 40. finer than any of yours. pp. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. 90. Calif.” The jackals’ refusal to submit to the Arabs may come at their expense.87 What makes Kafka’s story so extraordinary is that the Arab who faces the jackals is in a narrative position to pass final judgment on their project and its leaders.org/terms 187 . in Max Nordau’s taxonomy—who needed to be civilized. The animal figure of the jackal invokes the objectionable dog metaphor in European anti-Semitism.88 But in Kafka the allusion contained neither the common German.. N. 1902–1924. Of Jews and Animals (Edinburgh. but it distinguishes the jackals from their more docile. the events in Palestine that followed the publication of “Jackals and Arabs” have rendered the mixed up in it. Aschheim. p. 1958]. 87. 453–54). This content downloaded from 128. In the end. he urged the paying audience of assimilated and Zionist Jews to overcome their stereotypes against Yiddish culture. 87.218. 2010). 89. Brod [New York. Wisc. See also Andrew Benjamin. J. Briefe.. and Czech anti-Semitism nor that of dogmatic Zionists who felt that the Eastern Jews were parasites—“Luftmenschen. ”97 It also organized talks by prominent Jewish thinkers from across Central Europe who popular92. whether the chauvinism of the gentlemanly Herzl and the social Darwinism of the “muscular Jew” Nordau or the racist anthropology of Zionist organizers in Palestine such as Arthur Ruppin and Elias Auerbach. 94. [v]. See John M. But the value of Kafka’s story lies less in its alleged anticipation of things to come than in the degree to which Kafka stood outside the Zionist frenzy for Palestine. At the time.92 By all accounts. p. Jewish intellectuals in fin-de-sie`cle Prague had little time for the dominant Zionist ideologues. Kafka and Cultural Zionism. they decided that a national home for the Jews in Palestine was to be the solution for “the Jewish question. 56–57. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. Zionism and Technocracy. even as he was caught up in the Zionists’ taxonomy of Jewish life in Central Europe at the fin de sie`cle. even though the fact-finding mission that the Basel Congress dispatched to the Holy Land had determined that “the bride is beautiful but she is married to another man. the group advocated Jewish emancipation in Europe in Selbstwehr.72 on Wed.”94 Like many cosmopolitan Jews. 2007)..” Their plans for colonizing Palestine were an escape from European anti-Semitism. Named after the heroic Jewish rebel against Roman occupation in 132–35 CE. Western Jews’ assimilation.org/terms . Muscular Judaism: The Jewish Body and the Politics of Regeneration (London. which he held responsible for the Jewish plight in Europe and whose language he considered “the clandestine language of captives.”95 In Altneuland. 80–102. he painted a rosy picture of Zionist settlement in Palestine. 96. Mich. 166–74. see Penslar. Quoted in Bruce.. Zionism and the Fin de Sie`cle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinski (Berkeley. Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine (Ann Arbor. 2001). Herzl was disgusted by Yiddish culture. 2007). 11. This content downloaded from 128.188 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs animal story prescient.218. The Balfour Declaration inaugurated precisely what the jackals failed to do in Kafka’s fiction: remove the Arabs from their land with the backing of Europeans. as well as the “backwardness” of “Ostjuden. pp. On the link between Ruppin’s biography and the technocratic aspects of settler-Zionism. p. Todd Samuel Presner. 127–41. p. 1994). See also Aschheim. and Hans Kohn. 97. Kafka. See Michael Stanislawski. 20.jstor. Robert and Felix Weltsch. 95. Quoted in Robertson. Conn.”96 Kafka was initially socialized into Jewish intellectual currents in 1909–10 when he started attending meetings of the Bar Kochba student group in Prague. 93.6. pp. Brothers and Strangers. Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-deSie`cle Europe (New Haven. an influential newspaper that Kafka recognized as “the Zionist voice in Czechoslovakia.93 When the founding fathers of political Zionism staged the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. this Zionist association was run by his school friends Hugo Bergmann. pp. Ghada Karmi. Efron. For Ha‘am’s 1891 report on Arab aspirations in Palestine. advocated by Ahad Ha‘am. 2). Budapest. was a place for Jews. Brod saw in Zionist action the potential of Jews to return to history and atone for “2. This content downloaded from 128.” 101. an eminent Haskalah critic. 1993). Comparing Ha‘am’s recently republished 1895 essay. . The Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha‘am and the Origins of Zionism (London. See Michael Löwy. p. . Brod. Hebrew journalist. as it was based on repeated travels to Palestine and on what he saw with his own eyes. from 1908 to “the most recent time.” which celebrated the proliferation of a diverse and contradictory Zionist literature. but it was conceived in “European. “Palestine can never be a homeland for the entire Jewish people. Brod acknowledged that for all his spiritualism Ha‘am’s critique could not be dismissed as fanciful.218. Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe: A Study in Elective Affinity (London. He also connected the group’s work to the wider developments of Zionism. Zipperstein. see Alan Dowty.” with Buber’s The Jewish Movement of 1916.101 For Ha‘am. and Paris. and Asher Ginzberg. Herzl’s Old-Newland. “Much Ado about Little: Ahad Ha‘am’s ‘Truth from Eretz Yisrael. 2.98 But three lectures by Buber on Hassidic folklore had the most lasting effect on the group in general and on Kafka in particular.” Die Zukunft. “At the Crossroads.” Israel Studies 5 (Fall 2000): 154–81.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 ized the spiritual approach to Zionism and Palestine as a Jewish homeland.” The third phase. as well as to opposing currents of Jewish antiestablishment thought in Vienna.” He argued that Herzl’s diplomacy and the mantra of “no colonization without sovereignty” dominated the first phase.000 years of Jewish passivity.”100 He worried that creating a European state for Jews in Palestine would abandon the Jews who chose to remain in Europe to the fate of assimilation.’ Zionism.jstor. provided a Hegelian 98. . Buber shaped the way Ha‘am’s approach metamorphosed into Prague’s particular cultural form of Zionism.” p. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. Like Bergmann but unlike Kafka.6. Ahad Ha‘am.org/terms 189 . and early critic of settler-Zionism. 99. 1917. Brod confirmed.99 Brod’s 1917 essay “The Third Phase of Zionism. Frankfurt. was very much a position paper on how the Prague circle inserted itself into the Zionist movement before the Balfour Declaration. The second phase. not Jewish culture. 1992). See Steven J.72 on Wed. Brod admonished. which was taking shape as he wrote this tract. 20 Jan. and the Arabs. only a place of healing for the Jewish spirit. Brod discerned the general shift from theory to practice as a sign of the strength of the movement. 100.” unleashed the “practical piecemeal colonization” that Buber and especially Ha‘am considered soulless and therefore also objectionable (“Z. hereafter abbreviated “Z. “Die Dritte Phase des Zionismus. Berlin. It will never alleviate the economic and social plight of the Jewish masses. pp. Der Jude presented a host of articles that checked political Zionists’ euphoria. when Buber launched Der Jude in Berlin and Vienna.106 It was inconceivable for him to question 102. 11).”103 Since its inaugural issue in 1916. But even his recognition of signs of national aspirations among the Arabs of Palestine following his visit in 1910 stopped neither him nor any other Zionist in Prague from organizing the colonization of Palestine. a cofounder of the binationalist group Brith Shalom. the third Phase of Zionism” (“Z. The unexpected success of political Zionism on 2 November 1917 rendered Brod’s synthesis out of date before the ink had dried on his Die Zukunft essay. On Bergmann’s acknowledgment of Arab national aspirations. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.6. Arthur Cohen. p. Arabs.102 Through his sublimation of the second phase. Bergmann. 93–123. the Bar Kochba group quickly became its “editorial subgroup. One of the very few who acknowledged that “Palestine is no empty land and bears the character of its dominant population” before the Balfour Declaration was Kafka’s school friend Hugo Bergmann. nos. Ala. This content downloaded from 128.” Palästina 8. Their sense of reality demanded a more scientific calculation of the facts on the ground in order to achieve a “Maximal Programme” of the “Systematic Colonization of Palestine.105 Bergmann later became a settler and the first director of the National Library. 7). Germans.72 on Wed. irrigation problems. and rector of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Returns of Zionism. and nutritional quotas entailed totally underestimated challenges for Herzl’s settlement scheme in Palestine and required comprehensive statistical research. 5 (1916–1917): 301–7. in which “Der Jude . 106. Indeed. pp. no. .” Der Jude 1. [had] become the most significant gathering point for . 7–9 (1911): 291. 1980). 103. On the complexity of the concept of galut and the foundational myths of Israel.” pp..”104 Soil quality.” 1916 –1928 (Tuscaloosa. see Shumsky. 105. “Bemerkungen zur arabischen Frage. Brod conveniently circumvented Ha‘am’s paradox of how settler-Zionism could claim to be faithful to authentic Judaism when it was merely transplanting a European ethos of colonial land development to Palestine.” p. and Adolf Böhm. nos. See Schmuel Hugo Bergmann. . 3. 104. 90–96.org/terms . . See Davis Trietsch. The Jew: Essays from Martin Buber’s Journal “Der Jude. 4. But Brod’s essay captured the sense of purpose in his Prague circle.218. “Bemerkungen zur arabischen Frage. see Piterberg. 221–24). 10. 1–2 (1917–1918): 58–64. 192.190 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs solution by way of synthesis: “Jewish cultural work [Volksarbeit] in exile [galut]” fuses with colonization in Palestine (“Z. “Czechs. “Systematische Palästinakolonisation.” Der Jude 2. . His concern was to improve Zionism and to prevent the growing Jew-hatred among Arabs “at least as long as [Jews] were a small minority in Palestine” (see K. land use.” p. Jews. “Ein Maximalprogramm der ju¨dischen Kolonisation in Palästina.” pp.jstor. In an early exchange in 1902. . 1995). Bergmann was the first convert to Zionism around 1900 and also the first to suffer Kafka’s taunting for it. Bergmann outlined his principles of cultural Zionism. 13–24. cultural Zionism stood for a return to history through Jewish statehood. ed. Like Brod. Miriam Sambursky. Christians. “Schulzeit und Studium. “Greater Zionism” is not to be confused with the territorial maximalism of the revisionists around Vladimir Jabotinski. pp. and Muslims lived in considerable harmony while the Ottoman government was already busy settling Bedouins to raise agricultural productivity and 107. in turn. Tagebu¨cher und Briefe. Jews.” Jawne und Jerusalem: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Berlin. This content downloaded from 128. See Bergmann.218. the lone Zionist voice from Palestine. would reinvigorate the totality of Jewish life. Hans-Gerd Koch (Berlin. 7–11. had defined as “The Hidden Question” at the seventh Zionist Congress in 1905: the native population of Arabs was numerous and thriving. which. . I see you smile.110 Bergmann also rejected Herzl’s European model of the sovereign settler in Yavneh and Jerusalem. 108.107 His intellectual journey from Prague to Palestine represents the nuances at work in Kafka’s circle and marks him as the hero of Brod’s third phase. 110.”: Erinnerungen an Franz Kafka. . 1919). ed. Streitbares Leben: Autobiographie (Munich. he did not want to wait for an international charter before launching the colonization of Palestine. He invoked the concept of transvaluation— after Nietzsche. 34–42.”108 Kafka’s smile haunted Bergmann throughout his life as he was trying to justify Zionism as the force that facilitated his intellectual creativity and sense of purpose and solidarity. Inspired by the vitalist theories of Ukranian-born Jewish thinker Mica Joseph Berdyczewski. See Brod.109 Bergmann’s own critique of colonial Zionism was informed less by any concern for the native Arab population than by his worry that settlement in Palestine jeopardized Jewish emancipation in Europe.org/terms 191 . he was committed to what was known as “Greater Zionism”: national emancipation in Europe and colonial settlement in Palestine. . pp.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 the justness of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine or to recognize the Arabs on their own terms as Kafka’s “Jackals and Arabs” had done. See Bergmann.6. Bergman. 1960). After millennia of stateless spirituality. 2 vols. Bergmann complained to his friend: “Of course. “Grösserer Zionismus (1911). “Jawne und Jerusalem (1914). 109.jstor. your letter does not lack the obligatory derision of my Zionism.111 Upon his arrival in Palestine in 1910. .” Jawne und Jerusalem. (Berlin. Until the Balfour Declaration. the precondition of the will to power—in order to mold Ha‘am’s spiritual Zionism into a new Jewish philosophy of actuality. Bergmann encountered firsthand what Yitzhak Epstein. a collection of his essays published in 1919. 111.” in “Als Kafka mir entgegenkam. pp. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. See Bergmann.72 on Wed. 1985). 1:9. Bergmann has been cast as the embodiment of the good conscience of Prague’s exceptionally humanist Zionism. he did not abandon the reality of the galut for the promise of Palestine.114 Before he became interested in Zionist literature around 1911. pp. trans. 118. James Stern and Elisabeth Duckworth (New York.218. Kafka. 2:98.” Brenner distrusted Zionists whose presence spread “the poison of Jew-hatred. From Here and There.” in Jawne und Jerusalem. Kafka to Felice Bauer. effectively negating—to appropriate Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin’s apt reformulation—the Zionist negation of exile. Nachgelassene Schriften und Fragmente. Palestine was a land brimming with Zionist promise.112 But the reality on the ground did not discourage him.” he read and recommended Brod’s Zionism essay. despite the cynicism of settlers like the Hebrew novelist Brenner. Brenner held that “the exile [galut] is in Palestine.”116 And in 1918 he still “had not caught onto the last fleeing tip of the Jewish prayer coat like the Zionists.118 Kafka’s library also contained Richard Lichtheim’s Das Programm des Zionismus (1913). 6 Feb. Palestine does not wait for settlers and its inhabitants have neither the desire nor the reason to let go of their property. Brenner’s 1911 novel. 115. 1977). irked Bergmann because it exposed the contradictions of cultural Zionism’s relationship to Palestine. 66. Richard and Clara Winston (New York. “Jewish Memory between Exile and History. pp. But instead of unequivocally defending his own conviction that the galut is part of Judaism.192 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs state control beyond the urban centers. which he suspected to be a settler-colonial movement abroad.115 In 1916. p. See Bergmann. Bergmann conceded that Brenner had a point. ed. In his essay “The Pessimist. he came to accept the Zionist mantra of the negation of exile as he urged his readers to intensify Jewish immigration and to improve Zionist colonization efforts. . 1973). 114. Letters to Felice. See Eugene Lunn. 29–36. Letters to Friends. 117. Prophet of Community: The Romantic Socialism of Gustav Landauer (Berkeley. he had participated in gatherings and demonstrations in Prague whose intellectual inspirations were Gustav Landauer and Pyotr Kropotkin. and Editors. 501.”117 Even so. Family. 12 Sept.72 on Wed. . See Bergmann. See Kafka to Brod. “Ein Schwarzseher (1912). See Raz-Krakotzkin. shortly after writing “Jackals and Arabs. he disavowed Jewish ideology apologetically in a letter to his fiance´ Felice Bauer: “I am not a Zionist.113 Kafka could not embrace a movement of emancipation at home.jstor.org/terms . 116. Adolf Böhm’s Zionistische Palästinaarbeit (1909). p. 213. Tagebu¨cher. Max 112.” Bergmann took issue with Brenner’s fatalism regarding the colonization of Palestine. 113. 1973). Erick Heller and Ju¨rgen Born. too . Kafka’s knowledge of the debates around cultural Zionism and Palestine was largely mediated through Bergmann and Brod. This content downloaded from 128.” Jewish Quarterly Review 97 (Fall 2007): 530–43. 1916. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. 1919.6. Unlike his friends. 64.” and he rejected both maximal colonization and Ha‘am’s idealistic detachment. trans. “Die Auslese des Menschenmaterials fu¨r Palästina. See Bruce. the Americas to China. 84. 1913. See Ju¨rgen Born. as Arthur Ruppin. he watched the Zionist propaganda film Shivat Zion (Return to Zion) in Prague. see Piterberg. Prague was a hub of Jewish information and experimentation. 1913. The Returns of Zionism. See Arthur Ruppin. Incongruously.jstor.120 As it was. It attracted a vociferous anti-Semitic crowd outside the cinema and a rapturous audience inside that burst into applause at the sights of Winston Churchill. since he was at the centre of Jewish intellectual life. 126. and regularly read Selbstwehr and the central organ of the Zionist movement.org/terms 193 . or bookbinder. Letters to Felice. 120. 75. p. and Ruppin as unbearably clamorous. who directed the Palestine Office for Jewish immigration.122 Kafka followed closely how other German-Jewish authors positioned themselves. Tagebu¨cher. Letters to Felice. Kafka considered many Palästinafahrer. occupation. Bohemian journalism. 157. which showed images of Palestine. as well as a 1902 monograph on what Islam adopted from Judaism. 523. Ussishkin. and racial criteria for the selection of the fittest and the most desirable. artisan.218. to replace Buber. p. were “dreary” where “something is missing.6. Kafka. Dates in Palestine. Kafka may well have been aware of “the Maccabian type” in the racial taxonomy of Zionist immigration engineers. 122. 8 Sept. See Reiner Stach. p. p. See Bruce.125 Even the performances and texts by Buber. He subscribed to Palästina.123 He was well placed to do so. 2008). and Zionist cinema. immigration criteria would have disqualified him from entering the promised land after his case of tuberculosis in the summer of 1917. 8–9 (1918): 373–83. as he called the settlerZionists in allusion to “Kreuzfahrer” (Crusaders). 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. in 1922. But. 125. proposed strict health. whom he liked on a personal level.72 on Wed. Kafka: Die Jahre der Erkenntnis (Frankfurt. See Kafka to Felice Bauer. 170. p. 16 Jan. However. 121. Kafka to Bauer. Die Welt. generally. This content downloaded from 128.” Der Jude 3. 1990). 124. nos. Kafka perceived the Zionist congresses as “sorry affairs” 124 and the lectures which he attended in 1913 by icons like Solokov. Kafkas Bibliothek: Ein beschreibendes Verzeichnis (Frankfurt. a copy of which he carried with him when he first met Felice Bauer. his friends even considered him briefly for the position of editor of Der Jude. Yiddish theatre. p.”126 In October 1921. p. Dates in Palestine. Ruppin considered this the ideal type of the virile new Jewish settler. According to Piterberg.”121 Kafka was a junkie for news from Prague to Palestine. British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel. 123. or Palestine journeymen. 437.119 Kafka studied Hebrew and periodically flirted with the idea of going to Palestine—as a waiter.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 Mandelstamm’s Eine Ghettostimme u¨ber den Zionismus (1901). 319. and the cosmopolitan119. chauvinists who “constantly mouthed about emulating the Maccabees. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. like Albert Einstein. 2. See Bruce. Quoted in Bruce. later became outspoken critics of Israel.. as it was written amid increasingly violent outbursts of anti-Semitism on the streets of Prague.6. 131. He had enough common sense and humanity not to get swept up in Zionist euphoria for the colonization of Palestine. Susan H.72 on Wed. See Aschheim. and musical community of soaring dogs. In the story. trans. Textual insinuations of the way the new dogs obsessively sprinkle the soil suggest that Kafka compared the settler-Zionism of the Palästinafahrer with the way dogs mark their territory.” Journal of the Kafka Society of America 16. See also Ze’ev Rosenkranz. Muscular Judaism. dance.194 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs turned-violent-ZionistJabotinski. N. See Batuman. As Elif Batumen reminded us recently. this reception forecloses the possibility that Kafka also ridiculed the way this dream was being realized in Palestine. Some agnostic Zionists in fin-de-sie`cle Prague. 109. Kafka’s Travels. This content downloaded from 128. R. “‘Aggadah Raises Its Paw against Halakha’: Kafka’s Zionist Critique in Forschungen eines Hundes. 101–10. See also William Kluback. 1992).”129 The interpretation by Kafka’s school friend Bergmann that the story was “full of allusions to the Zionist dream of Jewish life” is common. Zilcosky. 130. See also Nicolas Berg.I.J. p.131 Conclusion: The Subversive Legacy of a Champion of Underdogs Kafka was neither a committed Zionist nor an outspoken anti-Zionist.. 173. 2011).jstor. the canine narrator mocks the much vaunted scientific dogs and defends the maligned speech. Kafka Goes to the Movies. pp.130 However. “‘Aggadah Raises Its Paw against Halakha. in his “Investigations of a Dog. chap. which may well have been a pun on eretz Israel. in a mocking revision of Nordau’s trope of ignominious “Ostju¨dische Luftmenschen. 1 (1992): 5. which had so irritated Bergmann in 1902.133 Bergmann 127. and Presner. Gillespie (Chicago.128 His sharpest yet highly encoded indictment of the Zionism of the Palästinafahrer came after the Balfour Declaration. who taught at Charles University from 1910 to 1912 and was a lifelong friend of Bergmann. and he spent the end of his short life in Berlin. 128. Luftmenschen: Zur Geschichte einer Metapher (Göttingen. p.’” 132.ButKafkanotedtheexperienceinhisdiarywith characteristic indifference: “Afternoon. See Kluback. Courageous Universality: The Works of Schmuel Hugo Bergmann (Providence. Palestine film. or Lufthunde.” Many commentators considered this 1922 allegory about Jewish culture particularly tasteless.org/terms . pp. Quoted in Hanns Zischler. he confided to his diary at the end of his life that he failed in both regards. Einstein before Israel: Zionist Icon or Iconoclast? (Princeton. 2006). his declared “ersatz Palestine” (ersatz Palästina). Brothers and Strangers.132 But his skepticism. 4.” 133.218. 129. 107–14.”127 His approach to organized settler-Zionism was generally dismissive. “Kafka’s Last Trial. Courageous Universality. stayed. 2003). p. no. 2005).” “The Non-Jewish Jew” and Other Essays. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about. 96.6. one-state solution in the course of the British Mandate.jstor. . erstwhile member of Kafka’s Bar Kochba circle and prominent Palästinafahrer. Jackals in Waltz with Bashir. A Land for Two People: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs. Quoted in Löwy. 69.”135 Later.org/terms 195 . 1968).Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 FIGURE 2.”134 Löwenthal had come to the same disenchanted conclusion about Zionism five years earlier when he described Zionist practices in Palestine as “a colonial European policy toward the Arabs. influential scholar of nationalism. ed. Isaac Deutscher. p. Redemption and Utopia. . and others came to champion a binational. opens with jackal-like dogs scampering through the nocturnal streets of Tel Aviv (fig. This content downloaded from 128. Some left the Zionist movement altogether. 136. Hans Kohn. is unacceptable. was so upset about the Zionists’ brutal response to Palestinian protests against Jewish mass immigration in 1929 that he wrote to his close friend Buber that “Zionism as it is today . The condition of Palestinians has now reached highbrow literature. movie still. Quoted in Buber.218. Margaret Atwood concluded in a recent 134. 116. “Israel’s Spiritual Climate. Isaac Deutscher shared these sentiments when he warned that “the state of Israel has had explosives—the grievances of hundreds of thousands of displaced Arabs—built into its very foundations. ed. In this nightmare that had haunted the narrator for years. Tamara Deutscher (Oxford. 135. award-winning animated documentary Waltz with Bashir.”136 Ari Folman’s recent. Paul Mendes-Flohr (Chicago. p. 2). p.72 on Wed. which comes to terms with the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon during the summer of 1982. they are the resurrected cadavers of his military service in the Lebanon war. as people are struggling to step out of the protracted. collective nightmare of a Kafka story.org/terms .”137 Kafka was one of the first who illuminated this Palestinian “shadow” in his literature. This process will inFIGURE 3. Bergmann. the old friend-or-foe readings of the 1970s and 1980s are too parochial and paranoid. But the examples of Brod. www. Invocations of Joseph K.com/ haaretz-authors-edition/the-shadow-over-israel-1. In the Arab world. volve not demolishing but recuperating and redeeming the past in order to reconstitute—following Benjamin.” Haaretz. he did so without any sense of moral superiority over Arabs. Margaret Atwood. and Said—a dystopian present. Cultural-turned-binational Zionists have often served as a fig leaf for liberal Israelis who congratulate themselves on Zionism’s tolerance of difference.196 Jens Hanssen / Kafka and Arabs op-ed piece in Haaretz that their maltreatment is a “shadow over Israel. Israeli attempts to claim the last untapped manuscripts of this prodigy of modernism are bound to gloss over the distinction between settler-Zionism and precolonial Zionism’s emancipatory contributions to Jewish consciousness in Europe. As the binationalist solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beginning to gain ground again internationally—while it is being criminalized in Israel in the recently passed “nakba law”— Kafka’s allegorical illuminations are important reminders that the roots of binationalism. “The Shadow over Israel.218. need to be decolonized. Unlike many artists today. and Smilansky suggest that this discourse of toleration has worked to marginalize Arabs.293653 This content downloaded from 128. 2 June 2010. Freud.72 on Wed.haaretz. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. 137. also. Poster for Kafka play in Beirut. Rereading “Jackals and Arabs” can direct us to where this process of decolonization may need to begin: in the recognition of the other as equal and constitutive of the self.6. ” eventscal.php. See “Les Dangers des chiens.72 on Wed. and the Pigs.org/terms 197 .jstor.com. Kafka is only the beginning. the Boss. As Darwish and al-Qasim have asserted. I’jaam.” Ibn Kafka’s obiter dicta— divagations d’un juriste marocain en liberte´ surveille´e. 02 Nov 2016 23:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.wordpress. His Father.6.218. trans. and Sinan Antoon. Rebecca Johnson and Antoon (San Francisco.138 The revolutionary moment that has swept the Middle East in 2011 may have a cathartic effect on exposing the hollow structure of many authoritarian regimes. the Wolf. An Iraqi Rhapsody.lau. 138. 2004). ibnkafkasobiterdicta.edu. “Major Theater Production: “Kafka.lb/2010/05/08/major -theater-production-kafka-h. from Morocco’s popular blogs by Ibn Kafka and Kafka stage productions in Lebanon to Iraqi prison literature (fig.Critical Inquiry / Autumn 2012 and Franz Kafka have been ubiquitous in Arab media and arts recently. This content downloaded from 128. 3).