Nesjomme

For centuries, Amsterdam had a rich Jewish culture; the connection between the Jews and the city, called Mokum in Yiddish, was strong. Their influence on the city was great; for example, Simon Philip Goudsmit started his luxury department store De Bijenkorf, Abraham Tuschinski built the eponymous cinema, considered by many to be the most beautiful in the Netherlands, and men like Henri Polak, Sam de Wolff and Monne de Miranda were behind the first trade union in the Netherlands: the Algemene Nederlandse Diamantbewerkerbond. It is estimated that around 80,000 Jews lived in Amsterdam before the outbreak of WWII.

Filmmaker Sandra Beerends (a.o. Ze noemen me Baboe) tells the story of the pre-war, Jewish community using a lot of archive material. She does so through the letters young Rusha writes to her brother Max, who emigrated to the Dutch East Indies. Rusha and the letters are fictional, but what she writes is based on real testimonies and historical facts. It is a tribute to the Jewish soul of Amsterdam: the nesjomme.