Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

July 5, 2024

The Gay Dutch Zionist Poet Who Became a Haredi Anti-Zionist

The murder of Jacob de Haan.

Today, on the Jewish calendar, is the 100th anniversary of the murder of Jacob Israël de Haan, who was shot leaving a Jerusalem synagogue by a member of the Haganah. Martin Kramer deems this “the first nationalist murder of a Jew by a fellow Jew”—at least in modern times. Drawing on a pen-portrait by the Zionist leader Frederick Kisch, Kramer describes De Haan’s unusual life:

SaveGift