Joodse identiteit en ondernemerschap in het Nederlandse bioscoopbedrijf tot 1940

Abstract

Before the Holocaust, Jewish entrepreneurs played a prominent role in all segments of the international film industry. While their visibility generated wide public attention at the time, it has rarely been the subject of scholarly research. As a result, a rather simplistic popular image of highly assimilated entrepreneurs who cared little about their Jewishness still dominates the existing literature. This case study investigates how Jewish film exhibitors in the Netherlands integrated the Jewish religious calendar into their business practices during the Interwar period. Our analysis, which is based upon the Jewish weekly press as well as the leading Dutch film trade journal, reveals that the relationship which these entrepreneurs maintained with the Jewish community was far more complex. They kept their theatres open on the Sabbath, but privately honoured it with family, friends and colleagues. On Yom Kippur they stopped working but did not close their theatres, except when the clientele was overwhelmingly Jewish (Tip-Top Theater in Amsterdam). While they did not openly present themselves as Jews to the general public, they occasionally reached out to the Jewish community by organizing special screenings of Jewish theme films, either for profit or for charitable purposes (e.g. screenings for children around Purim and Chanukah).