One subject is at the heart of our review: Kafka. Rainer Stach’s monumental biography of Kafka has already become a classic in many countries. The life of the author of The Metamorphosis unfolds in three large volumes of nearly a thousand pages each. Life? But whose life are we talking about? Right from the introduction, the biographer states the paradox he was confronted with: Kafka may be the genius writer we know, but his “physical existence offers a truly damning balance sheet.” Rainer Stach recalls that during his short time on earth – 40 years and 11 months – Kafka asked himself, over and over again and in vain, how to make a place for himself in the world, always finding himself to be blocked… Ruth Zylberman interviewed the biographer. He returns to his vertical dive into the secret of a life that put the act of writing at its center while it was otherwise stalled.
The phenomenon is difficult to measure precisely, but it is undeniable: in many neighborhoods, over the past fifteen years, Jewish pupils have largely deserted public schools, given the context of the resurgence of antisemitism in France. Maëlle Partouche went to the fourth edition of the “Choisir l’école juive” (“Choose the Jewish School”) event. Observing what is on offer allows us to take the pulse of the community, its apprehensions and expectations, but also its relationship with Israel and the perspective of Aliyah.
Finally, in this week of the hundred and twentieth anniversary of the Kishinev pogrom – committed at the beginning of April 1903 – we are republishing some excerpts from the account of Moisei Borisovitch Slutskii (1851-1934), who was a direct witness and survivor. A doctor, he was above all the first to help the victims of the massacre who had taken refuge in the Kishinev hospital, where he was the director. Slutskii devoted the last years of his life to work on his important testimony: “As a direct witness of this terrible event (…) it seems necessary to me to immortalize the facts, especially since there is, to my knowledge, no more or less complete description of the Kishinev pogrom. Perhaps my modest work here will serve as material for a future historian. Future generations – which I hope will live in better political and social conditions – will thus be able to know one of the saddest episodes of those dark times, vanished into eternity.”
