Film link : http://www.oorloginblik.nl/film/niod/2759421
Sjabbos | Friday Night (1932) avant garde film documentary made by dutch filmmaker Jan Teunissen (G.J. Teunissen) on the Amsterdam Jewish Quarter when sabbath starts.
It’s the first film presented by the dutch jewish film producer Loet C. Barnstijn – and as and artistic documentary , different from his later films. Sound by Polygoon Haarlem and Tobis-Klangfilm, Studios Éclair Paris-Èpinay-sur-Seine.
Pre-war Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter at the start of the shabbat: street life with shops and market, the Zuidertoren tower strikes 4 o’clock and the sabbath starts. The shops are closing, businesses are being shut down, employees are rushing home.
While the women at home put the finishing touches to the meal, carefully set the table and light the candles, the men hurry to the synagogue. Chazan Blanes enters the Snoge (Portuguese Synagogue) through the side gate, cantor Maroko greets the shabbat in the Grote Synagoge (Great Synagogue).
Jan Teunissen joined the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands in 1940, benefactor member of the dutch SS in 1941 and head of the Filmgilde – the film section of the dutch ‘Kultuurkamer’ – the NS propaganda organisation in Holland during WW2.
Fragments of this film where used in 1941 in the dutch version of the Nazi antisemitic propaganda film “The eternal Jew”.
After the war Jan Teunissen was detained 3 years and subsequently prohibited from working in the Dutch film industry for ten years.
References
http://www.oorloginblik.nl/film/niod/2759421
https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/collection/film-history/person/jan-teunissen https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Teunissen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTMN_QOrdKQ
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