Following eight years of protracted legal proceedings, the Tel Aviv District Court has ruled that the National Library of Israel is the rightful home for the personal papers of author Max Brod, which includes one of the world's most significant and expansive collections of letters and manuscripts written by Franz Kafka. Brod, an accomplished writer and composer in his own right, was a confidant of Kafka's and is in large part responsible for his success as one of the 20th century's most influential writers, having published many of Kafka's works after the author's death in 1924. Brod held onto the papers until he passed away in 1968, when they wound up in the hands of his former secretary, Eva Hoffe, who bequeathed them to her daughters upon her own death in 2007. The court has now ruled that the papers must be transferred to the National Library of Israel, where, in accordance with Brod's wishes, they can be properly preserved and made available to the public.