1. Levie Jacob "Louis" Fles was a Dutch businessman, activist and author.
17 Facts About Louis Fles
1. 2.
Louis Fles is best known for writing and broadcasting against Zionism, Nazism, and organized religion.
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Louis Fles was born in Maassluis, Netherlands on 19 October 1871 to Jewish parents.
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On 13 August 1896 Louis Fles married Zipporah van Straten in the city of Rotterdam.
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Louis Fles was widely known as an opponent of Nazism when the German army occupied the Netherlands in May 1940.
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Louis Fles began working in his stepfather's office shortly after completing primary school.
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Louis Fles gave lessons in French, English, and German before passing the accounting examination.
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However, Louis Fles is better known for his extensive writings on politics, religion, and education.
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In Kalenderhervorming, Sjabbat en Kerk, Louis Fles first observed that clinging to cultural and religious practices that set Jewish people apart from the surrounding Dutch culture served to feed the anti-Semitic narrative of Jews as foreigners.
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Religion, Louis Fles wrote, was as antithetical to socialism as water was to fire.
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Louis Fles sold his business that depended largely upon selling imported German merchandise, and, in 1936, served on the planning committee for De Olympiade Onder Dictatuur, which served as counter to the summer Olympics being held in Berlin.
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Additionally, Louis Fles carried on correspondences with other leading thinkers of his day, including an extended debate with Henri Polak regarding the nature of socialism and Louis Fles' determined opposition to Zionism.
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Louis Fles felt himself to be Dutch, and saw Zionism as further separating Jews from their non-Jewish Dutch neighbors while reinforcing the image of the Jew as a foreigner.
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Louis Fles became involved with Vrijdenkers Radio Omroep, which had been established in 1928 as an outreach program of the freethinkers' association De Dageraad.
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In 1933 Louis Fles challenged the secretary of the Radio Broadcasting Control Commission regarding the lack of support VRO received from the government.
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Louis Fles pointed out that the 1930 census had shown that the number of "unchurched" citizens had risen sharply, and, since this was VRO's intended audience, it should receive commensurate support.
17.
However, documents from the organization show that Louis Fles was elected to the VRO's general board, showing that the organization continued to work toward regaining the right to broadcast.