Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka
State Medal
Third in the "Jewish Contributors to World Culture" Series

Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883 to a middle-class Jewish family. He studied law at the University of Prague. He was prevented from pursuing a career in journalism beacuse he would not compromise his high literary standard. In 1917, he was diagnosed with tuberculoses from which he died in 1924. The few writing to be published during his lifetime ("Metamorphosis", "The Penal Colony", "The Country Doctor", et al.) were not regarded highly. Kafka desired to abandon literature but after his death Max Brood published his works, against his request to burn all of them. After Wold War II, Kafka's writings were distributed in Hemany and the rest of the world, greatly influencing Western literature. The persecuted and nightmarish quality of his writings turned Kafka into a symbol for the generation survivng the violence of war. Kafka's stroied describe man's attempt to exist in incomprehensible world, governed by a hidden, absolute force with it's own rules. Kafka's writing style is amazingly realistic and believable because of its detail, stressing the illogical and illusory "reality". The term "Kafkaesque" has become an international word used to describe the feeling of being trapped in a maze of grotesque events. The artist Mark Salman has given expression to this concept on the reverse of the Medal

Design: Mark Salman

Reliefs: Tidhar Dagan

Minting: Gold - The Government Mint, Jerusalem
Silver - Kretchmer, Jerusalem
Bronze - Hecht, Tel-Aviv