It was late afternoon on Friday, June 30, 1924, and the shopkeepers along Jaffa Road were rolling down the thin screens of corrugated metal and shutting down for Shabbat, shouting greetings at each other and slamming doors. The din didnâ??t seem to bother Jacob de Haan: Walking out of the makeshift synagogue in the back yard of the Shaâ??are Tzedek hospital, he stopped in front of the buildingâ??s imposing façade, lost in thought.
He had much on mind: The new book he had just published was scandalous, its 900 short poems much more candid than de Haan had ever been in print about his love for young Arab boys. And there was the upcoming trip to London, to convince the government there that not all of the Jews in Palestine were hell-bent on independence; the Zionists, incensed, had threatened de Haan more than once, but he didnâ??t care. His convictions, like his poems, were deeply felt. He started marching down the street.
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