Court: Kafka scripts to be moved to Israel library

JERUSALEM (AP) — A Tel Aviv court has ruled that a collection of manuscripts written by Franz Kafka and Max Brod must be transferred to the Israeli National Library in Jerusalem.

The ruling brings an end to a heated, protracted court case.

Tel Aviv sisters Eva Hoffe and Ruth Wiesler insisted on keeping the vast collection of rare documents, which they inherited from their mother, Esther Hoffe, Brod's secretary.

In a document sent to news media Sunday, the court ruled that the documents were not given as gifts to the sisters.

The National Library argued that Brod, Kafka's close friend, left the manuscripts to the National Library in his will. Kafka bequeathed his writings to Brod shortly before his own death from tuberculosis in 1924, instructing his friend to burn everything unread.