Jacob Israël de Haan (31 December 1881 – 30 June 1924) was a Dutch Jewish writer, poet, journalist, and political activist. First known for Pijpelijntjes (1904), the earliest Dutch novel to portray a homosexual relationship, he later became noted for his journalism, his studies of Russian prisons, and his poetry. After embracing Zionism, he moved to Jerusalem in 1919, where he gradually became the leading political spokesman of the Haredi community and a vocal opponent of the Zionist leadership. De Haan’s attempts to negotiate with Arab leaders and the British authorities made him a controversial figure, and he was assassinated by the Zionist paramilitary organisation Haganah in 1924, the first political killing within the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine. His literary work and political legacy remain the subject of ongoing debate.
Early life De Haan was born in Smilde, a village in the northern province of Drenthe, into a large and poor orthodox Jewish family. He was said to be one of eighteen children His father, Izak de Haan, served as a hazzan and religious teacher in small congregations, which forced the family to move frequently in search of income. When he was six, the family settled in Zaandam, where the Jewish community was small but maintained a synagogue, school, and kosher butchers. De Haan grew up in a devout environment and later recalled both attachment and discomfort in his childhood there.
He studied to became a teacher at a teacher training college in Haarlem, and worked as a teacher afterwards at several schools. As a student, he broke with his religious upbringing largely due to his homosexuality, started reading the Tachtigers literature of Frederik van Eeden and Herman Gorter and became a socialist. He joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party and edited the children's section of the socialist newspaper Het Volk. His sister, the writer Carry van Bruggen, also contributed to this newspaper.
After moving to Amsterdam in 1902, he discovered writers of the Decadent movement such as Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine and Jan Eekhout. In 1904 he wrote the novel Pijpelijntjes ("Lines from De Pijp"), which was the first book written in Dutch to depict a relationship between two men. The book falsely pretends to be a thinly veiled version of his own gay life with Arnold Aletrino in Amsterdam's "Pijp" working-class district. The homo-eroticism of the book, shocking to readers in the early 20th century, led to his dismissal from his teaching job and social-democratic political circles. Het Volk stopped collaborating with him after the publication of the novel. De Haan's acquaintances bought almost the entire print run of the book, to keep a lid on the scandal. A new homo-erotic novel about a sadomasochist relationship between two men, Pathologieën, made it even more difficult for him to find a job.
In 1907, he married Johanna van Maarseveen (1873–1946), a non-Jewish doctor eight years older than him. They separated in 1919, but never officially divorced.
He left socialism behind, studied law and became a private lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, traveled to England and Russia and published poems in the magazine of Albert Verwey. In 1912, de Haan visited a number of prisons in Russia, in order to study the situation of political prisoners. He published his findings in his book In Russische gevangenissen (In Russian prisons, 1913). He also founded a committee, together with writer Frederik van Eeden and Dutch poet Henriette Roland Holst, which aimed at collecting signatures for the sake of inducing especially Russia's then allies France and Great Britain to exert pressure on Russia to alleviate the fate of the prisoners. In a publication of Amnesty International he was, because of these activities, described as "a precursor of Amnesty International"."Wordt Vervolgd" (Amnesty International, Section Netherlands), March 1987
Move to Palestine Zionist beginnings Around 1910, De Haan returned to the Jewish religion and started to learn Hebrew. He developed an interest in Zionism, joining in 1915 the Mizrachi, the religious branch of the Zionist Organization.
This is a description of de Haan prior to his departure for Palestine:
Religious and anti-Zionist phase De Haan moved to Jerusalem in 1919 as correspondent of the Algemeen Handelsblad, one of the leading Dutch dailies. He also taught at a new law school, the Jerusalem Law Classes, established by the Government of Palestine in 1920. He was one of the defenders of members of the Zionist para-military group Haganah who had attacked Arabs in Jaffa.
De Haan rapidly became more religiously committed, and was angered by Zionist refusals to cooperate with Arabs.Gert Hekma, Harry Oosterhuis, James D. Steakley (eds.) Gay men and the sexual history of the political left, Part 1, Routledge, 1995 p. 106.
At first he aligned himself with religious Zionism and the Mizrachi movement, but after meeting Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, leader of the ultra-conservative Haredi Jewish community, he became the political spokesman of the Haredim in Jerusalem. He was elected political secretary of the Orthodox community council, Vaad Ha'ir. De Haan endeavoured to obtain an agreement with Arab nationalist leaders to allow unrestricted Jewish immigration into Palestine in exchange for a Jewish declaration forgoing the Balfour Declaration.Menachem Friedman, 'Haredim and Palestinians in Jerusalem', in Marshall J. Berger, Ora Ahimeir, Jerusalem: a city and its future, Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 235–255, .
During this time it is alleged that he continued to have relationships with young men, including Arabs from east Jerusalem. In one of his poems he asks himself whether his visits to the Wailing Wall were motivated by a desire for God or for the young Arab men there.Robert F. Aldrich, Colonialism and homosexuality, Psychology Press, 2003 p. 84. In Jerusalem, de Haan formed a close relationship with Adil Effendi (1900–1963), who became his companion, Arabic teacher, and lover. Effendi, about twenty years younger, accompanied de Haan on rides, walks, and travels, and de Haan rented a house from Effendi’s family in the Old City. Although he publicly referred to Effendi as a “friend,” his Quatrains poems portray a deeper emotional and erotic attachment. These poems draw on amrad and ghulām motifs from Arabic and Ottoman homoerotic traditions, which idealized beardless youths and were common in regional poetry. Scholar Nathan Witt situates de Haan's sexuality within a broader Orientalist dynamic.
The secular Zionist establishment would not allow the established Haredi community in Palestine to be represented in the Jewish Agency in the 1920s. In response, the Haredim founded a branch of the Agudath Israel political organisation in Jerusalem to represent their interests in Mandate Palestine. The leader at the time, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, chose de Haan to organise and represent the Haredi position as their foreign minister,Anita Shapira, Berl: The biography of a socialist Zionist, Berl Katznelson, 1887–1944,CUP Archive, 1984, p. 146. on a diplomatic level equal to that of the secular Zionists. When in February 1922 Lord Northcliffe, the most influential British publisher, visited Palestine, De Haan presented the case of Palestine's Haredim and how they felt oppressed by the Zionists.
De Haan, speaking on behalf of Agudath Israel, even opposed the British authorities allocating separate benefits to the Zionist-led Yishuv. From 1922, he suffered persisting harassment including death threats and being spat on by Zionists, and his class at the Law School demanded his dismissal.
De Haan was invited several times to visit Emir Abdullah, the future king of independent Transjordan. In March 1924, De Haan and rabbi Sonnenfeld travelled to Amman for an audience with Abdullah's father and top Hashemite leader, Emir Hussein bin Ali. They sought their support for the Old Yishuv (the pre-Zionist Jewish community in the Holy Land), and explained the Haredi Jewish opposition to the Zionist plans of founding a state and support for the establishment of an official Palestinian state within the Emirate of Transjordan as part of a federation. In April, De Haan met Hussein again and reported that the Caliph condemned "godless" Zionism and would mobilize the Islamic world against it"; however, De Haan's top rival Frederick Hermann Kisch obtained a retraction from Hussein, which De Haan was forced to publish. De Haan made plans to travel to London in July 1924 with an anti-Zionist Haredi delegation to argue against Zionism.
Assassination
Shortly before leaving for London, De Haan was assassinated in Jerusalem by the Haganah on the early morning of 30 June 1924.Menachem Friedman, ibid. p. 238. As he exited the synagogue at the Shaare Zedek Hospital on Jaffa Road, Avraham Tehomi approached him and asked for the time. Tehomi shot him three times and ran away from the scene. De Haan died minutes later.
At first, the Palestinian Jewish society, the Yishuv, readily accepted the theory that the assassination had to be blamed on Arabs. They did not doubt the Zionist leadership's assurances that it had played no part in it. With time, doubts started arising.
In 1952, , the first commander of the main Zionist pre-state para-military organisation, the Haganah, told the official Haganah historian in a testimony what had actually occurred. In order to stop De Haan's planned anti-Zionist activity in London, Hecht discussed the issue with Zechariah Urieli, the Haganah commander in Jerusalem. They decided to assassinate De Haan. Two Haganah members, Avraham Tehomi and Avraham Krichevsky, were selected for the task. Hecht did not inform the Yishuv's civilian leadership until after the assassination, when he contacted Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, a senior member of the National Council. Hecht stated that "he did not regret it and would do it again." Before the facts were published, journalist Liel Leibovitz wrote that, while the identity of exactly who ordered the assassination was unknown, "there's little doubt that many in the senior Zionist leadership in Jerusalem knew about the proposal to kill de Haanand that none objected."
The 1985 publication of De Haan: The first political assassination in Palestine, by Shlomo Nakdimon and Shaul Mayzlish, revived wider interest in his assassination. Nakdimon and Mayzlish were able to trace Tehomi, then a businessman living in Hong Kong. When interviewed for Israeli TV by Nakdimon, Tehomi said that Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who later became the second President of Israel (1952–1963), must have ordered the assassination: "I have done what the Haganah decided had to be done. And nothing was done without the order of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi... I have no regrets because he (De Haan) wanted to destroy our whole idea of Zionism." Tehomi denied allegations that De Haan's assassination was related to his homosexuality: "I neither heard nor knew about this", adding "Why is it someone's business what he does at his home?"
According to Gert Hekma, Zionists spread a rumour that De Haan had been killed by Arabs because of his sexual relations with Arab boys.Gert Hekma, 'De Haan, Jacob Israel' in Robert Aldrich, Garry Wotherspoon (eds.) Who's who in gay and lesbian history: from antiquity to World War II, Routledge, 2003 p. 143
Aftermath De Haan was buried on the Mount of Olives. His funeral was attended by hundreds of Haredim, along with Zionist and British representatives. Following the funeral, many Haredim ventured into the city center to confront Zionists, and were barely restrained by the police.