author
Emmy J. Belinfante
1875–1944
Among the first women to build a career in Dutch daily journalism, she helped open newspaper pages to women’s voices while writing with independence and social conviction. Her life joined literary work, feminism, and public debate, and ended tragically in Auschwitz in 1944.
1 Audiobook
Het hol van Kaan
by Emmy J. Belinfante
About the author
Born in The Hague in 1875, Emmy J. Belinfante was a Dutch journalist, editor, and feminist remembered as one of the first women to work in daily journalism in the Netherlands. She came from the prominent Belinfante family, long active in publishing and journalism, and grew up in a liberal Jewish household that valued public life and ideas.
She became especially notable for writing what is described as the first women’s column in a Dutch daily newspaper. Her editors recognized that she could speak to a growing audience of women interested not only in domestic life, but also in society and politics. Alongside her journalism, she was active in the women’s movement and connected with national and international women’s organizations.
Belinfante’s career shows how journalism and early feminism often went hand in hand. During the Nazi occupation, as a Jewish woman, she was no longer able to continue her work. She was deported and murdered in Auschwitz on July 7, 1944. Today she is remembered both for her pioneering place in Dutch journalism and for the wider path she helped open for women in public life.