The Animal in the Synagogue : Lexington Books : 9781498595155 : 1498595154 : 15 Jul 2021 : The Animal in the Synagogue explores Franz Kafka's sense of being a Jew in the modern world and its literary and linguistic ramifications. It falls into two parts. The first is organized around the theme of Kafka's complex and often self-derogatory understanding and assessment of his own Jewishness and of the place the modern Jew occupies in "the abyss of the world" (Martin Buber). That part is based on a close reading of Kafka's correspondence with his Czech lover, Milena Jesenska, and on a meticulous analysis, thematic, stylistic, and structural, of Kafka's only short story touching openly and directly upon Jewish social and ritual issues, and known as "In Our Synagogue" (the title-not by the author). In both the letters and the short story images of small animals-repulsive, dirty, or otherwise objectionable-are used by Kafka as means of exploring his own manhood and the Jewish tradition at lar