Based on many testimonies, this compelling and moving montage of richly varied archival material from the interwar period brings to life the neshomme, the soul, of Jewish Amsterdam. 

Soul, feeling, commitment, says the dictionary about the meaning of the Yiddish word neshomme. Sandra Beerends' new film is about the soul of pre-war Jewish Amsterdam. Countless fragments from (archival) films are connected by the fictional character of Rusha, a Jewish Elckerlyc of the interwar period, constructed from testimonies of contemporaries and Holocaust survivors. She recounts her life, her misjpooche (family) and her city in letters, which she also uses to play correspondence chess, to her brother Max, who left for India.

Beginning in 1918, when the “Great War” in which the Netherlands remained neutral is over, Neshoma shows all the developments and changes in a compelling and moving montage. From the colorful life in the Jewish quarter where Rusha's father was a diamond worker, to the social struggles and modern building projects of alderman De Miranda; from the opening of Tuschinski's cinema on Reguliersbreestraat to the fire that reduced the Paleis voor Volksvlijt to ashes; from the crisis years and the rise of National Socialism to the persecution of Jews during the occupation.