author
Jacob Israël de Haan
1881–1924
A Dutch writer and journalist whose life moved through literature, law, religion, and politics, he remains one of the most striking and tragic figures in early 20th-century Dutch letters. He is especially remembered for bold, boundary-pushing fiction and for the dramatic turns his public life took before his murder in Jerusalem in 1924.
1 Audiobook
Jerusalem
by Jacob Israël de Haan
About the author
Born in Smilde in the Netherlands on December 31, 1881, he became known as a novelist, poet, journalist, and trained legal scholar. His early literary fame came from Pijpelijntjes (1904), often noted as the first Dutch novel to portray a homosexual relationship, and his work quickly marked him as an unusually daring voice.
Over time, his interests reached far beyond fiction. He wrote journalism, studied legal and prison issues, and later moved to Palestine in 1919. There, his religious and political outlook changed sharply, and he became a spokesman for parts of the Orthodox Jewish community in Jerusalem.
His life ended violently on June 30, 1924, when he was assassinated in Jerusalem. That combination of literary innovation, personal complexity, and political controversy has kept his story alive long after his death.