A delayed response from a lifelong Zionist in Israel.

To the Editor:

Belatedly, (in 2010), I saw and read the article "Report from Israel" by Haim Chertok in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of your esteemed magazine.

Being now in Israel for 71 years, I was and am still an ardent Zionist. During all these years I contributed my small part to enhance the well-being of our only and dear homeland, the Land of Israel.

Many of the facts described in the above mentioned article are accurate and are in accord with what actually happened here in Israel, but they alone distort the overall picture of Israel. Besides the negative aspects there are many, many positives that remain unmentioned by the author.

If I were a young Zionist living today outside Israel, the picture shown by the distinguished author would most probably prevent me from making aliyah. The article does not enhance our position and sadly distorts conditions in Israel.

Moshe Ayalon

Haifa, Israel

Kafka's Zionism: A Response

To the Editor:

Though I have long admired the writings of Cecil Bloom, I was quite taken aback by his essay on Kafka's "Zionism." Each one of his supporting propositions is hedged: {Kafka} "implied that Zionism would solve the Jewish problem" or "possibly" solve it. In response to Katie's negations of not being a Zionist or, at best, indifferent to it, Bloom offers "quite possibly that had he lived" he would have made aliyah. Katie's interest in Hebrew "suggests" that aliyah may have been serious (reading a page a day of Brenner is not much of a suggestion.). To rebut Katie's characterization of Zionism as a phantasy Bloom invokes a horticulture interest in 1911.

Bloom mentions casually Katie's "obsession" with Yiddish theater, the Care Savoy and the traveling Yiddish group that played there. A much stronger case can be made for the impact that connection had, including an intense personal relationship with one of the actors with whom he corresponded for years. With all the references in Bloom's piece to Max Brod, he fails to note that it was Brod who first observed his friend's intense interest in Yiddish theater In one of his diaries Brod states: "I ... was a frequent member of the audience at ... the Cafe Savoy ... But Franz, after the first time I took him there, entered into the atmosphere completely."

Evelyn Beck argues persuasively (Kaika and the Yiddish theater Univ of Wisconsin 1970) that Katie's encounter with the Yiddish troupe in 1912 marked a sharp change in his writing style from loose rambling, highly personal, to "fight construction, direct, limited focus ... and an intensity which builds up to a climax and falls." In both his diaries and letters to the ill-fated Felice Bauer ( they were twice engaged and never married) there are frequent references to the Cafe Savoy and Yiddish theater. The diaries are peppered with reference to Yiddish classics such as Shulamith Bar Kokhba, Gott Mentsh und Tayvil. There is a striking similarity in Katie's most famous story, "Metamorphosis" and Yakov Gordin's Der Vilde Mentsh. Both feature a son lying in a room, staring and awaiting some kind of sacrifice.

The math is that Kafka's canon is as difficult as biblical exegesis. The most that can be obtained from each is an approximation. Kafka's "Zionism" is as impenetrable as so many of the rich variables in the life of Jewry's greatest writer of the 20th centre.

Harold Ticktin

Shaker Heights, Ohio