Seven autograph letters signed (‘Max’) to his cousin Steffi Glaser (one to her brother Willy Brod), 16 Hayarden Street, Tel Aviv, 1 February 1948 - 2 June 1953 and n.d.

Max Brod (1884-1968)
Seven autograph letters signed (‘Max’) to his cousin Steffi Glaser (one to her brother Willy Brod), 16 Hayarden Street, Tel Aviv, 1 February 1948 - 2 June 1953 and n.d.
In German. 14 pages, various sizes, with an autograph postscript to a typed letter signed to Willy Brod by his secretary, Esther Hoffe, 7 December 1952. Three envelopes (one from Zürich without corresponding letter) and three annotated news clippings. Provenance: Sotheby’s, 1 & 2 December 1994, lot 585.

On the foundation and mission of the state of Israel, his literary activities, his views on Christianity and Judaism, and mentioning a dramatisation of Kafka. The earliest dated letter, to his cousin Willy on 10 February 1948, reflects on the turbulent months which were to precede the foundation of the state of Israel on 10 May: 'We are going through some pretty stormy times here now, but we hope that the end of all these dreadful intrigues will ultimately be the free Jewish state, which will develop well and peacefully to the honour of humanity and Judaism. If the evil world (and especially the English gentlemen) doesn't stab us in the back!'. The first letter to Steffi, on 5 April (no year, but perhaps also 1948) expresses delight at hearing from her after so long: he discusses the losses amongst their family during the Nazi years, including his beloved brother Otto, and mentions his work in Tel Aviv as a dramaturge for the Habima Theatre and as a journalist. In later letters Brod describes the postwar state of Czechoslovakia, especially the prevalent antisemitism, expresses strong opposition to Steffi's plans to become a baptised Christian ('I consider that for Jews to be baptised is something terrible, even sacrilegious'), and discusses the difference between Christianity and Judaism and his own approach to religious belief, mentioning his novel on the Essenes in the decades before Christ. On 10 February 1953 he responds to a question about [Ze'ev] Jabotinsky, 'a man of genius – but his life was war, violence, terror. For me the state of Israel was always a moral requirement. And this state should contribute to the disappearance of war and suffering amongst people', and declares his dislike of extremism: 'Ich bin ein Mann der Mitte'. In the last letter (2 June 1953) he briefly mentions his old friend Franz Kafka: 'my dramatisation of Kafka's Castle has had a great success on the stage in Berlin'.

Max Brod is best known as the close friend and literary executor of Franz Kafka. Brod fled Prague for Mandatory Palestine in 1939 after the Nazi takeover. He settled in Tel Aviv, and lived there for the rest of his life: his literary activity was thereafter closely associated with the Habima Theatre, the national theatre of Israel.