Posted on July 18, 2008 by Steve Pollak
This is the woman everyone wants to talk to about the possible "treasure trove" of Kafka material stashed away in a Tel Aviv apartment for the last 40 years.
Her name is Hava Hoffe and she was photographed outside her Tel Aviv apartment on Tuesday by HaAretz photographer Dan Keinan.
What's the big deal with this lady? Here it is: Hava and her sister Ruth inherited a Tel Aviv flat belonging to their mother, Esther Hoffe, who died last year. Esther Hoffe had been the secretary to the executor of Kafka's estate, Max Brod, who died in Israel in 1968 and left Esther most of the materials in his personal archive. In the 1980s, she sold Kafka's manuscript of The Trial for close to $2 million. And while some other materials were smuggled out of Israel over the years, during her lifetime Esther Hoffe mostly refused to let researchers look at the rest of the archive.
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Posted on July 18, 2008 by Steve Pollak
In the video clip below, HaAretz columnist Ari Shavit and The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg discuss Israel at the Aspen Ideas Festival. The talk was moderated by The Atlantic's editor, James Bennet.
If you like what you see and hear, you should check out part II and part III. As a teaser, here's my favorite question asked by James Bennet in the third part:
Let me ask you about the [Olmert] corruption inquiry itself, because I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. After all these years and all this talk about Israelis trying to influence the American government through the American Jewish community, we have apparently an American Jew paying money directly for some sort of influence to Olmert. Is this progress?
Posted on July 17, 2008 by Steve Pollak
Most of the collective grief yesterday rightfully centered around the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. But HaAretz commentator Bradley Burston remembered another group of mourners — the families of the victims of Samir Kuntar.
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