Jacob Israël de Haan

A man of contradictions and opposition. A Dutch Lawrence of Arabia? Jacob, a man with many faces and even more stories. The son of a Jewish cantor in The Netherlands, was a journalist, poet, writer, teacher and lawyer. He was the author of the first Dutch autobiographical homosexual novel (Pijpelijntjes). In 1919 he left Holland for Palestine, where he was murdered exactly one hundred years ago because of his sharp criticism of political Zionism. Banquet in the Chassidic synagogue. We eat bread in the House dedicated to God. We break fruit and we drink wine. In everything, bread, fruit, wine, I taste struggle And my confused pain.