De Haan's 1904 novel Pipelines was one of the first in the Netherlands to openly depict homosexual relationships; the Homomonument in Amsterdam features a quote from him. Less well known are the Jewish elements of his life story. After experiencing antisemitism, de Haan headed to Palestine in 1919 with hopes of participating in the Zionist movement’s efforts towards establishing a Jewish state. He soon fell out with the Zionist leadership however and subsequently became a spokesman for the ultra-Orthodox Yishuv, which opposed the establishment of the state. The most critical moment of the conflict that followed remains just as explosive over a hundred years later as it was then: As a correspondent for Dutch and British newspapers, de Haan advocated for peaceful relations with the Arab population and a two-state solution. In 1924, he was shot dead in Jerusalem. Director Zvi Landsmann extensively explores de Haan's evolution as an author and activist, and his significance today, whilst also attempting to find evidence for a hitherto unsubstantiated theory about his murder, according to which the perpetrators came from the Zionist underground army Haganah and acted, if not on the orders of, then at least with the tacit approval of Yitzhak Ben Zvi, the future President of Israel. Through the discovery of previously unseen archival material and with the support of two remarkably unpartisan descendants of the suspected murderers, he makes considerable progress.
Text: Susanne Stern
Following all screenings there will be a Q&A with director Zvi Landsman.
