Israeli court decides Kafka works to go to National Library

JERUSALEM – Israel’s Supreme Court has stripped an Israeli family of a collection of Franz Kafka manuscripts, ruling that they be transferred to the country’s National Library.

The National Library says in an announcement on Tuesday that the court ruled it was “the preferred location” for the trove of unpublished Kafka works. The library says it will make the manuscripts accessible to the general public.

The decision, which came Monday, puts an end to a years-long Kafkaesque courtroom saga. Two lower courts previously made the same ruling.

Eva Hoffe received the manuscripts, among other works, from her mother, the secretary of Kafka confidant Max Brod, who kept and published Kafka’s works after his death. The family had argued that it was in rightful possession of the manuscripts.