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Cafe Scheherazade
'In Acland Street, St Kilda, there stands a cafe called Scheherazade.' Thus begins this haunting meditation on displacement and the way the effects of war linger in the minds of its survivors. At once fable and history, it takes the reader on a journey which ranges from Kobe to Paris, from Vilna and back to Melbourne.
232 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 2003
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342 people want to read
About the author
Arnold Zable
17 books25 followersZable was born on 10 January 1947 in Wellington, New Zealand to Polish-Jewish refugee parents. They moved early in his life to Australia and he grew up in Carlton, Victoria.
Zable is known as a storyteller - through his memoirs, short stories and novels. Australian critic Susan Varga says that Zable's award-winning memoir, Jewels and Ashes, "was a ground-breaking book in Australia, one of the first of what has since become a distinct auto/biographical genre: a second-generation writer returns to the scene of unspeakable crimes to try to understand a fraught and complex legacy, and, in so doing, embarks on a journey into the self.
In an interview Zable explained that the rights and experiences of refugees and asylum seekers underpins his work:
"The current generation of refugees are experiencing the intense challenges faced by previous generations. We tend to forget, or fail to imagine, how difficult it is to start life anew far from the homeland. We forget also that nostalgia, the longing for the return to homeland, is a deep and enduring aspect of the refugee experience."
In the same interview he said about his language that "I am drawn to the quirky sayings and observations that define a person or a culture".
Zable is known as a storyteller - through his memoirs, short stories and novels. Australian critic Susan Varga says that Zable's award-winning memoir, Jewels and Ashes, "was a ground-breaking book in Australia, one of the first of what has since become a distinct auto/biographical genre: a second-generation writer returns to the scene of unspeakable crimes to try to understand a fraught and complex legacy, and, in so doing, embarks on a journey into the self.
In an interview Zable explained that the rights and experiences of refugees and asylum seekers underpins his work:
"The current generation of refugees are experiencing the intense challenges faced by previous generations. We tend to forget, or fail to imagine, how difficult it is to start life anew far from the homeland. We forget also that nostalgia, the longing for the return to homeland, is a deep and enduring aspect of the refugee experience."
In the same interview he said about his language that "I am drawn to the quirky sayings and observations that define a person or a culture".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
August 13, 2020
I'm sure I reviewed this a couple of months ago just after I'd read it, but no sign of it now.
Zable grew up in Melbourne, the son of Jewish refugees from Poland and this famous Cafe, set up and run by Eastern European Jews, was a hub of social life where food and traditions of the old world could be enjoyed by visitors.
He has combined elements of true stories to create the fictional characters of three old men, survivors of the European Catastrophe in Poland, Germany, the Ukraine and Russia and regular visitors to the Cafe who tell their stories to a young journalist also visiting the Cafe.
Now that I've just finished reading Zable's family memoir Jewels And Ashes I have no doubt that the stories he writes here are drawn from the lives of his own family or people they knew in Melbourne's community of Jewish survivors.
Here is the Goodreads blurb:
'In Acland Street, St Kilda, there stands a cafe called Scheherazade.' Thus begins this haunting meditation on displacement and the way the effects of war linger in the minds of its survivors. At once fable and history, it takes the reader on a journey which ranges from Kobe to Paris, from Vilna and back to Melbourne.
Zable grew up in Melbourne, the son of Jewish refugees from Poland and this famous Cafe, set up and run by Eastern European Jews, was a hub of social life where food and traditions of the old world could be enjoyed by visitors.
He has combined elements of true stories to create the fictional characters of three old men, survivors of the European Catastrophe in Poland, Germany, the Ukraine and Russia and regular visitors to the Cafe who tell their stories to a young journalist also visiting the Cafe.
Now that I've just finished reading Zable's family memoir Jewels And Ashes I have no doubt that the stories he writes here are drawn from the lives of his own family or people they knew in Melbourne's community of Jewish survivors.
Here is the Goodreads blurb:
'In Acland Street, St Kilda, there stands a cafe called Scheherazade.' Thus begins this haunting meditation on displacement and the way the effects of war linger in the minds of its survivors. At once fable and history, it takes the reader on a journey which ranges from Kobe to Paris, from Vilna and back to Melbourne.
August 5, 2020
It's odd how reading follows cycles, sometimes it almost feels like chance but I know it's not as I've wandered for the last decade or so through writings about and from central and eastern Europe. And it's inevitable that almost anything written from that part of the world after the second half of the twentieth century will at least mention the deaths of millions of people in revolutions, wars and genocides.
Cafe Scheherazade: Text Classics is set in the Australian city of Melbourne after World War II, in a cafe of that name run by Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Zable's novel is fiction, it seems, only in that he has brought together life stories of a number of people he knew as a visitor to it himself, and formed them around the lives of three old men, each of whom survived the Catastrophe in different ways, all harrowing, all leaving permanent damage to the survivors.
Since I finished this I've read Zable's own memoir of his search for his Bialystok Jewish family, (his birth name was Zabludowksi). It's one of the most moving and distinctive books on Eastern European Jewry that I've read and I'll review it next: Jewels And Ashes.
Cafe Scheherazade: Text Classics is set in the Australian city of Melbourne after World War II, in a cafe of that name run by Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Zable's novel is fiction, it seems, only in that he has brought together life stories of a number of people he knew as a visitor to it himself, and formed them around the lives of three old men, each of whom survived the Catastrophe in different ways, all harrowing, all leaving permanent damage to the survivors.
Since I finished this I've read Zable's own memoir of his search for his Bialystok Jewish family, (his birth name was Zabludowksi). It's one of the most moving and distinctive books on Eastern European Jewry that I've read and I'll review it next: Jewels And Ashes.
January 31, 2023
Going to University was a very formative experience for me. After two years in college, I moved into a shared house with some of my new (now life-long) friends. Needless to say, these years were ones where looking after myself physically was not high on the agenda. Missed meals, or take-away, became part of my life.
Except on Tuesday nights - on Tuesday nights a group of us would travel to St. Kilda from wherever we happened to be living, to have a meal at Cafe Scheherazade in Acland Street. This was often the only proper meal in a week's eating. Barley soup, chicken and cheese sandwich on rye, or a schnitzel with the works: I'm feeling hungry just thinking about it. The waitresses came to know us over the years, and like mother hens would encourage us to eat up. As the years went by we finished our studies and moved into the workforce, and I remember the time a friend of mine, now a lawyer, appeared on the television news and how excited the waitresses were that Tuesday when we turned up for our regular meal. We sometimes talked of how we would bring our children to Scheherazade when we had some.
Well we now do all have kids, but unfortunately Cafe Scheherazade is no more. The unstoppable gentrification of St. Kilda, and the passing of the Holocaust generation saw its demise.
As young 20-somethings, we'd often sit at our table and wonder at the histories of the other people in the cafe, with their animated conversations in Polish, Russian, Yiddish, a combination of the three, or some other language. We realised of course that it was the War that had led them to this particular end of the earth, and their European-ness was still noticeable even after what, for most, had been a long time Down Under.
Some of our questions are answered in this book by Arnold Zable: while not a history, Zable writes in his Author's Note at the end of the book that he has written "a homage to the power of storytelling, a meditation on displacement, and on the way in which the after-effects of war linger on in the minds of survivors." He goes on to note that "[w]hile Cafe Scheherazade is based on actual events, and upon tales that Avram and Masha and others have told me, I have reshaped and re-imagined them. Yossel, Zalman and Laizer a composite characters, whose fictional journeys are based upon tales I have heard from many survivors."
The book is structured around the journalist Martin, who meets and talks with the regulars at the Cafe about their experiences during the War. The stories we hear are incredible - surviving bombing raids, ghettos, Soviet prison-camps and work gangs, lucky stamps on passports that meant a journey to Japan and then Shanghai, where there were more bombings, returning home after the War only to leave again on discovering that not only homes, but entire families had been wiped out. Or stories of committed Bund members who were persecuted by the Nazis and the Communists, who formed partisan gangs and exacted revenge when and where they could. All now sitting around tables at the Cafe Scheherazade; named from a scene in the book Arc de Triomphe by Erich Maria Remarque, as Avram and Masha promised to rendezvous there in Paris after leaving Poland, Avram illegally and Masha legally.
Zable's writing is very effective - he captures the different middle European character types in his composite characters - the philosopher, the schemer, and the soldier. He shows them all in their different ways as lost souls, perpetually wandering the streets of their adopted home in search of they don't know what, drawn again and again to the coast, to look out across the bay, which leads to the nothingness of the Southern Ocean. Each try to make sense of their experiences. Laizer is given the quote "I cannot see continuity in my journey, only broken lines." His whole family perished in the Holocaust. Zalman - "...though I have lived in Melbourne for over fifty years, I have no sense of belonging. I am acutely aware that everything is temporary in life, a mere bridge." Yet he has reached a type of peace - "You have a taste for champagne, but a pocket only for beer. So the saying goes. But I have enough imagination to make beer taste like champagne. This is the great gift I received. Through losing everything, I became free."
Through these stories, the reader is perhaps able to begin to grasp something of what was lost, and to feel the horrors of that time for Eastern European Jews: what it was to be a victim of fate as the World collapsed around you not just once, but many times. There is some really powerful writing here.
Zable also captures the atmosphere of Cafe Scheherazade within the book - the groups of old men, the younger people, the future up-market denizens of St. Kilda that were sounding the death-knell of Scheherazade even as they asked for Lattes at the counter. And the food - " 'Schehererzade is a schnitzel gan eiden,' he says, 'a schnitzel paradise. It has the best. And every variety. My favourite is the chicken. But, if you wish, you can have veal schnitzel, a Parisian schnitzel, a Wiener schnitzel. Or you can order your own, the way you once had it, over there, homemade, in der alter velt.' " I can still picture the big round brown tables and simple chairs, the place mats, the 50s wallpaper, and the drawings on the wall - a true haven.
Those of the War generation who once frequented this great place have all passed now, but Cafe Scheherazade's loss is still mourned by those of us who know nothing of the suffering that the owners and their friends went through to make it to 99 Acland Street, St. Kilda.
The site of Cafe Scheherazade is now a shoe shop.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
Except on Tuesday nights - on Tuesday nights a group of us would travel to St. Kilda from wherever we happened to be living, to have a meal at Cafe Scheherazade in Acland Street. This was often the only proper meal in a week's eating. Barley soup, chicken and cheese sandwich on rye, or a schnitzel with the works: I'm feeling hungry just thinking about it. The waitresses came to know us over the years, and like mother hens would encourage us to eat up. As the years went by we finished our studies and moved into the workforce, and I remember the time a friend of mine, now a lawyer, appeared on the television news and how excited the waitresses were that Tuesday when we turned up for our regular meal. We sometimes talked of how we would bring our children to Scheherazade when we had some.
Well we now do all have kids, but unfortunately Cafe Scheherazade is no more. The unstoppable gentrification of St. Kilda, and the passing of the Holocaust generation saw its demise.
As young 20-somethings, we'd often sit at our table and wonder at the histories of the other people in the cafe, with their animated conversations in Polish, Russian, Yiddish, a combination of the three, or some other language. We realised of course that it was the War that had led them to this particular end of the earth, and their European-ness was still noticeable even after what, for most, had been a long time Down Under.
Some of our questions are answered in this book by Arnold Zable: while not a history, Zable writes in his Author's Note at the end of the book that he has written "a homage to the power of storytelling, a meditation on displacement, and on the way in which the after-effects of war linger on in the minds of survivors." He goes on to note that "[w]hile Cafe Scheherazade is based on actual events, and upon tales that Avram and Masha and others have told me, I have reshaped and re-imagined them. Yossel, Zalman and Laizer a composite characters, whose fictional journeys are based upon tales I have heard from many survivors."
The book is structured around the journalist Martin, who meets and talks with the regulars at the Cafe about their experiences during the War. The stories we hear are incredible - surviving bombing raids, ghettos, Soviet prison-camps and work gangs, lucky stamps on passports that meant a journey to Japan and then Shanghai, where there were more bombings, returning home after the War only to leave again on discovering that not only homes, but entire families had been wiped out. Or stories of committed Bund members who were persecuted by the Nazis and the Communists, who formed partisan gangs and exacted revenge when and where they could. All now sitting around tables at the Cafe Scheherazade; named from a scene in the book Arc de Triomphe by Erich Maria Remarque, as Avram and Masha promised to rendezvous there in Paris after leaving Poland, Avram illegally and Masha legally.
Zable's writing is very effective - he captures the different middle European character types in his composite characters - the philosopher, the schemer, and the soldier. He shows them all in their different ways as lost souls, perpetually wandering the streets of their adopted home in search of they don't know what, drawn again and again to the coast, to look out across the bay, which leads to the nothingness of the Southern Ocean. Each try to make sense of their experiences. Laizer is given the quote "I cannot see continuity in my journey, only broken lines." His whole family perished in the Holocaust. Zalman - "...though I have lived in Melbourne for over fifty years, I have no sense of belonging. I am acutely aware that everything is temporary in life, a mere bridge." Yet he has reached a type of peace - "You have a taste for champagne, but a pocket only for beer. So the saying goes. But I have enough imagination to make beer taste like champagne. This is the great gift I received. Through losing everything, I became free."
Through these stories, the reader is perhaps able to begin to grasp something of what was lost, and to feel the horrors of that time for Eastern European Jews: what it was to be a victim of fate as the World collapsed around you not just once, but many times. There is some really powerful writing here.
Zable also captures the atmosphere of Cafe Scheherazade within the book - the groups of old men, the younger people, the future up-market denizens of St. Kilda that were sounding the death-knell of Scheherazade even as they asked for Lattes at the counter. And the food - " 'Schehererzade is a schnitzel gan eiden,' he says, 'a schnitzel paradise. It has the best. And every variety. My favourite is the chicken. But, if you wish, you can have veal schnitzel, a Parisian schnitzel, a Wiener schnitzel. Or you can order your own, the way you once had it, over there, homemade, in der alter velt.' " I can still picture the big round brown tables and simple chairs, the place mats, the 50s wallpaper, and the drawings on the wall - a true haven.
Those of the War generation who once frequented this great place have all passed now, but Cafe Scheherazade's loss is still mourned by those of us who know nothing of the suffering that the owners and their friends went through to make it to 99 Acland Street, St. Kilda.
The site of Cafe Scheherazade is now a shoe shop.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 30, 2019
Wars really are like tsunamis, great waves that rush in and sweep people away, so many to their deaths, others to endless treks through strange countries living hand to mouth to survive.
I am so grateful to the marvellous Arnold Zable for writing Cafe Scheherazade. By recounting some of the survivors’ stories I have caught a glimpse of a world that I was completely ignorant of.
As he explains in his note, Zable writes, “While Cafe Scheherazade is based on actual tales that Avram and Masha (the proprietors) and others have told me, I have re-shaped and reimagined them. Yossel, Zalman and Laizer are composite characters, whose fictional journeys are based upon tales I have heard from many survivors.”
As you read the stories you can’t help but wonder how did these people survive! “This is a tale of many cities: Each one recalled at a table in a cafe called Scheherazade, in a seaside suburb (St Kilda) that sprawls upon the very ends of the earth, within a city that contains the traces of many cities.”
One such city is Vilna, the capital of Lithuania. “The Jerusalem of Lithuania, with its renowned yeshivas and houses of prayer, crumbling castles and fortress walls, elegant boulevards, cobblestone lanes, and its attics and garrets crowded with would-be sages and talmudic scholars, obsessed rebels and pamphleteers, hell-bent on changing a world that seemed to be forever spinning out of control.”
Another city is Odessa in Ukraine. “They are like a chorus in a Greek drama, those who frequent Scheherazade on this winter morning. They fill in the gaps. They echo the central text. Each one has a story aching to be told: tales of townlets and cities now vanished from the earth, of journeys in search of refuge, a shelter from a curse.”
Masha’s family ran for their lives from the Polish city of Sosnowiec. “‘In September 1939 we ran for Siedlce, for the comfort of our bubbe and zeide. We ran until we were surrounded, in a field. Everything was burning. Even the trees were on fire. But because we were children the German soldiers spared us.’
‘We settled in the border town of Lutzk,’ Masha continues. ‘But our freedom was short-lived. The Soviet police came to our home, in the middle of the night. They battered the doors with batons and rifle butts. “Bistro! Bistro!” they screamed... “You have twenty minutes to pack.”
“In February 1940, Laizer moved south from Vilna, deeper into Soviet territory, through White Russia and the Ukraine. Despite the fact that he was a refugee, he knew his Polish passport would be suspect on Soviet soil.”
Zalman, another of the cafe’s patrons, recounts how a Japanese consul based in the city of Kovno saved thousands of lives. “He was willing to stamp our visas with permits that would enable us to buy our way out.” Zalman escaped war torn Europe by travelling through Siberia and then boarding a Japanese freighter that took him to Tsuruga in Japan and then Kobe. Later, like Yossel, he spent time in Shanghai.
“‘Survival is, after all, a matter of mazel, of luck,’ Laizer mutters. ‘Of whether you hid under a bush that wasn’t bombed, whether you were spared a terminal disease. Or whether you fled north or south, east or west.’”
Cafe Scheherazade is a wonderful compilations of stories of escape. Stories that the average Australian would have no idea of except for Arnold Zable’s work in listening to these stories and creating from them a marvellous work of art. And the cover too, one of my all time favourites.
I am so grateful to the marvellous Arnold Zable for writing Cafe Scheherazade. By recounting some of the survivors’ stories I have caught a glimpse of a world that I was completely ignorant of.
As he explains in his note, Zable writes, “While Cafe Scheherazade is based on actual tales that Avram and Masha (the proprietors) and others have told me, I have re-shaped and reimagined them. Yossel, Zalman and Laizer are composite characters, whose fictional journeys are based upon tales I have heard from many survivors.”
As you read the stories you can’t help but wonder how did these people survive! “This is a tale of many cities: Each one recalled at a table in a cafe called Scheherazade, in a seaside suburb (St Kilda) that sprawls upon the very ends of the earth, within a city that contains the traces of many cities.”
One such city is Vilna, the capital of Lithuania. “The Jerusalem of Lithuania, with its renowned yeshivas and houses of prayer, crumbling castles and fortress walls, elegant boulevards, cobblestone lanes, and its attics and garrets crowded with would-be sages and talmudic scholars, obsessed rebels and pamphleteers, hell-bent on changing a world that seemed to be forever spinning out of control.”
Another city is Odessa in Ukraine. “They are like a chorus in a Greek drama, those who frequent Scheherazade on this winter morning. They fill in the gaps. They echo the central text. Each one has a story aching to be told: tales of townlets and cities now vanished from the earth, of journeys in search of refuge, a shelter from a curse.”
Masha’s family ran for their lives from the Polish city of Sosnowiec. “‘In September 1939 we ran for Siedlce, for the comfort of our bubbe and zeide. We ran until we were surrounded, in a field. Everything was burning. Even the trees were on fire. But because we were children the German soldiers spared us.’
‘We settled in the border town of Lutzk,’ Masha continues. ‘But our freedom was short-lived. The Soviet police came to our home, in the middle of the night. They battered the doors with batons and rifle butts. “Bistro! Bistro!” they screamed... “You have twenty minutes to pack.”
“In February 1940, Laizer moved south from Vilna, deeper into Soviet territory, through White Russia and the Ukraine. Despite the fact that he was a refugee, he knew his Polish passport would be suspect on Soviet soil.”
Zalman, another of the cafe’s patrons, recounts how a Japanese consul based in the city of Kovno saved thousands of lives. “He was willing to stamp our visas with permits that would enable us to buy our way out.” Zalman escaped war torn Europe by travelling through Siberia and then boarding a Japanese freighter that took him to Tsuruga in Japan and then Kobe. Later, like Yossel, he spent time in Shanghai.
“‘Survival is, after all, a matter of mazel, of luck,’ Laizer mutters. ‘Of whether you hid under a bush that wasn’t bombed, whether you were spared a terminal disease. Or whether you fled north or south, east or west.’”
Cafe Scheherazade is a wonderful compilations of stories of escape. Stories that the average Australian would have no idea of except for Arnold Zable’s work in listening to these stories and creating from them a marvellous work of art. And the cover too, one of my all time favourites.
January 5, 2017
There are a lot of a books on the Holocaust. Some are written in the first person, second person, third person, based on personnel experiences, on their parents or from research. All paint the horrors of the Holocaust for what it was - sheer madness and a blight on humanity.
But Zable's book is on the Holocaust also covered displacement, survival, resilience, love, friendship and man's invented stupidity of war. His characters are so embracing and while their stories are sad, they are proud to see their children and grandchildren thrive in a safe environment.
He tells their stories through an almost fable like way. I was worried that this book would be depressing - while it was in parts, it was also quite uplifting and told the complex story of the Jews in Poland and Lithuania during WII in a simple, respectful and unforgettable manner.
But Zable's book is on the Holocaust also covered displacement, survival, resilience, love, friendship and man's invented stupidity of war. His characters are so embracing and while their stories are sad, they are proud to see their children and grandchildren thrive in a safe environment.
He tells their stories through an almost fable like way. I was worried that this book would be depressing - while it was in parts, it was also quite uplifting and told the complex story of the Jews in Poland and Lithuania during WII in a simple, respectful and unforgettable manner.
December 6, 2016
Pure poetry.
'Nuff said.
'Nuff said.
August 27, 2023
*uni read
i did not expect this to be about world war two but i think this is generally one of the best war-related books i’ve read.
idk there’s just something else about it that really got to me.
but wow this book was great!
i did not expect this to be about world war two but i think this is generally one of the best war-related books i’ve read.
idk there’s just something else about it that really got to me.
but wow this book was great!
November 8, 2021
Very touching and honest. I could see and smell this cafe and imagine these people telling their stories over a meal. What a life the characters have, some people are real others a conglomerate of people the authors knew. Very easy to read. I have a memory of this area from the 80s, now fading into history
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 28, 2025
A striking novel on memory; on storytelling. On how describing the indescribable can, at least in part, make the unbareable bareable. Still, I don't understand how things repeat themselves, getting worse if possible. Not even a storytelling could explain what's going on now...
"This is not a book about history. Rather, it is a homage to the power of storytelling, a meditation on displacement, and on the way in which the after-effects of war linger on in the minds of survivors.
Whenever I hear of another outbreak of conflict somewhere on the globe, whenever I see images of columns of refugees snaking across war-ravaged landscapes, my thoughts turn back to the tales of survivors, living in Melbourne, many of whom I have known since my childhood"
‘We met at a Bund gathering. In the Polish countryside, near Wroclaw. In the summer of 1946. I was twenty-two, and Masha was nineteen. For me it was love at first sight.’
‘I was not so sure. I could see he was not ambitious. I could see he was a dreamer. All he wanted was a white room, with a desk, and a light. Can you believe it? That I fell in love with his stories?’
The end looms in the Jerusalem of Lithuania, yet there are those who bear children, a crime punishable by death. Basia gives birth to her second child in a concealed room within the ghetto hospital. She names her Nehamiah, the Hebrew word for ‘hope’. She retreats to the windowless room in which she lives with Etta and Avram, her husband Uri, and little Shmulek.
Nehamiah is not yet four months old when, on 5 July 1943, Yitzkhak Wittenberg is arrested. As he is being led from the ghetto, those guarding him are attacked and killed. The Gestapo issues an ultimatum: if Wittenberg does not surrender by morning, the ghetto will be liquidated.
‘In those days, when I first met him I was wary. I was unsure; but he kept me with his stories. When I heard them, I understood.’
Besbert. It is a word impossible to translate. An Hebraic word, with many layers of meaning. A word which invokes treks across biblical landscapes. An expression which contains the traces of chance encounters that change lives, and epic voyages towards the light. A word which hints at miracles. Or, perhaps, just mere coincidences. A term which twists its way back to Masha and Avram, to the first intimations of love.
We follow the rim of the sea. Phosphorus dances on the lips of shallow waves. We walk as silence descends upon the bay. We walk as our own voices are stilled, and are left trailing in our wake. One tale is ending, while others begin.
"This is not a book about history. Rather, it is a homage to the power of storytelling, a meditation on displacement, and on the way in which the after-effects of war linger on in the minds of survivors.
Whenever I hear of another outbreak of conflict somewhere on the globe, whenever I see images of columns of refugees snaking across war-ravaged landscapes, my thoughts turn back to the tales of survivors, living in Melbourne, many of whom I have known since my childhood"
‘We met at a Bund gathering. In the Polish countryside, near Wroclaw. In the summer of 1946. I was twenty-two, and Masha was nineteen. For me it was love at first sight.’
‘I was not so sure. I could see he was not ambitious. I could see he was a dreamer. All he wanted was a white room, with a desk, and a light. Can you believe it? That I fell in love with his stories?’
The end looms in the Jerusalem of Lithuania, yet there are those who bear children, a crime punishable by death. Basia gives birth to her second child in a concealed room within the ghetto hospital. She names her Nehamiah, the Hebrew word for ‘hope’. She retreats to the windowless room in which she lives with Etta and Avram, her husband Uri, and little Shmulek.
Nehamiah is not yet four months old when, on 5 July 1943, Yitzkhak Wittenberg is arrested. As he is being led from the ghetto, those guarding him are attacked and killed. The Gestapo issues an ultimatum: if Wittenberg does not surrender by morning, the ghetto will be liquidated.
‘In those days, when I first met him I was wary. I was unsure; but he kept me with his stories. When I heard them, I understood.’
Besbert. It is a word impossible to translate. An Hebraic word, with many layers of meaning. A word which invokes treks across biblical landscapes. An expression which contains the traces of chance encounters that change lives, and epic voyages towards the light. A word which hints at miracles. Or, perhaps, just mere coincidences. A term which twists its way back to Masha and Avram, to the first intimations of love.
We follow the rim of the sea. Phosphorus dances on the lips of shallow waves. We walk as silence descends upon the bay. We walk as our own voices are stilled, and are left trailing in our wake. One tale is ending, while others begin.
November 3, 2022
Actually my rating is 3.5.
Cafe Scheherazade in Ackland St in Melbourne - meeting place of survivors of Holocaust.
Stories of people from Poland and Ukraine who tried to escape the German war machine. Many of them expected a rescue in the Soviet Union, but it appeared to be not a better option.
Eventually they travelled around the world and ended in Australia.
There are 2 dimensions of my reflection about this book.
Firstly I have great respect for people whose stories are told in this book and I acknowledge skills of the author.
Secondly however, as a reader, I had trouble of sorting out all the facts of few parallel life stories.
I found a couple of links with facts about The Scheherezade in Acland St in Melbourne:
Cafe Scheherazade in Ackland St in Melbourne - meeting place of survivors of Holocaust.
Stories of people from Poland and Ukraine who tried to escape the German war machine. Many of them expected a rescue in the Soviet Union, but it appeared to be not a better option.
Eventually they travelled around the world and ended in Australia.
There are 2 dimensions of my reflection about this book.
Firstly I have great respect for people whose stories are told in this book and I acknowledge skills of the author.
Secondly however, as a reader, I had trouble of sorting out all the facts of few parallel life stories.
I found a couple of links with facts about The Scheherezade in Acland St in Melbourne:
December 28, 2024
2.25 ⭐️
Idk i think I might have to come back to this one at a later date and try to reread because the book had so much potential but I just personally didn't really vibe with it. It was really heavily grounded in non-fiction, which I usually like, and I definitely appreciated this aspect in the book, but I just wasn't drawn to it at all. The stories jumped around a bit (even though I think this was purposeful because when people tell stories, especially in a casual setting like a cafe, they're not going to be linear stories) but it made it difficult to connect with these really personal immigrant stories.
Also in general I don't think I like books with many individual stories in them (e.g when the coffee gets cold). But I did like the way that the whole book was a testimony to the tenaciousness and persistence of the human spirit, because these characters each survived through a lot.
Idk i think I might have to come back to this one at a later date and try to reread because the book had so much potential but I just personally didn't really vibe with it. It was really heavily grounded in non-fiction, which I usually like, and I definitely appreciated this aspect in the book, but I just wasn't drawn to it at all. The stories jumped around a bit (even though I think this was purposeful because when people tell stories, especially in a casual setting like a cafe, they're not going to be linear stories) but it made it difficult to connect with these really personal immigrant stories.
Also in general I don't think I like books with many individual stories in them (e.g when the coffee gets cold). But I did like the way that the whole book was a testimony to the tenaciousness and persistence of the human spirit, because these characters each survived through a lot.
August 28, 2019
This novel of historical fiction relays the stories of several Jewish survivors of the horrors of World War II. It is horrifying, full of individual courage and remarkable for the survival of the people in the novel and those they represent from real life. The back drop for the novel is a real cafe in St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Here the author heard many stories and the result was this novel. It is an excellent read.
October 23, 2022
Excellent book but some of it hard to read as quite confronting re: holocaust. Set in Melbourne in a cafe in St Kilda and then the writer tells stories of those who frequent the cafe and how they escaped the Nazi’s.
June 23, 2023
This is a captivating and poignant book that weaves together the stories of refugees and immigrants in a Melbourne cafe. Through vivid storytelling and based on true events we hear of the experiences of survival and displacement of Jewish people who survived the holocaust😅
April 22, 2020
Tragic, but tales that need to be told. Uplifting stories that inspire and give hope. "At once fable and history." Arnold Zable is a great storyteller.
August 26, 2020
Terrible stories. Warmth and hope.
April 25, 2022
A fascinating piece of writing. The author recounts the stories of a group of Holocaust survivors who visit regularly a cafe in St Kilda run by survivors. This was a work I could not put down.
April 25, 2022
beautiful
Read
May 10, 2023I did not enjoy this book, it just meandered and was annoying to read, after a while. I finished it, but would not recommend it.
January 19, 2024
Beautiful writing.
March 25, 2022
I found my way by chance to the café in Acland Street that inspired this book. It became a regular treat to go there with my children. In fiction Arnold Zable tells the story of the two remarkable people who survived to establish a haven of European culture and home comfort, where anyone who wanted to be there was welcome.
January 12, 2009
Welcome to Café Scheherazade where our narrator, Martin sits in the backroom and listens to the proprietors Avram and Masha, and their regular clientele relive the Jewish Holocaust through their personal stories.
Avram, stooped over his cup of coffee or a bowl of Borscht, recalls his days living in the Ghettos set up by the occupying German army, the mass graves and his last haunting image of his family as they disappeared into the smoldering city. Masha and her family trudged through the Siberian snow in the hope of reaching safety. They met and fell in love after the war as displaced refugees looking for a place in the world which embodied their hopes.
Café Scheherazade, is deeply moving and written in poetic rich language. Zable is a master at using the ancient art of story telling to transport the reader to wartime Europe. Through these stories, Zable creates a portal through which we are witness to the horrors of war and the triumph of the human spirit
Avram, stooped over his cup of coffee or a bowl of Borscht, recalls his days living in the Ghettos set up by the occupying German army, the mass graves and his last haunting image of his family as they disappeared into the smoldering city. Masha and her family trudged through the Siberian snow in the hope of reaching safety. They met and fell in love after the war as displaced refugees looking for a place in the world which embodied their hopes.
Café Scheherazade, is deeply moving and written in poetic rich language. Zable is a master at using the ancient art of story telling to transport the reader to wartime Europe. Through these stories, Zable creates a portal through which we are witness to the horrors of war and the triumph of the human spirit
July 19, 2011
As a follow on from reading The Book Thief - so very excellent - "Cafe S" adds more detail from Jewish survivors of the slave labour camps around the lead-up to WW2 and Nazi invasions in Eastern Europe. These people's stories are elicited by a newspaper journalist who meets them each day at a local Melbourne seaside cafe. It is semi-biographical in nature and I am half way through it - it keeps me coming back for more.
Finished it - sorry to see it finish really - and now I am back on this website the story has been made into a play in Melbourne. Good idea, should be good to go to.
Finished it - sorry to see it finish really - and now I am back on this website the story has been made into a play in Melbourne. Good idea, should be good to go to.
September 5, 2011
Emotionally, I found this book very hard to read as it is stories from Holocaust survivors. Zable has written in the first person from people who have existed in Siberia, Shanghai and other places which were challenging in World War II.
From a writing point point of view it is just awesome. I don't have enough words to tell you how good Zable's writing is. He uses words very carefully and it's easy to see exactly what he means.
From a writing point point of view it is just awesome. I don't have enough words to tell you how good Zable's writing is. He uses words very carefully and it's easy to see exactly what he means.
February 8, 2017
Oh boy. Beautifully written. Emotional, heart wrenching tales told by the patrons of Cafe Scheherazade of their times during WWII. Moments of devastation but also moments of hope.
November 29, 2011
sad. futility of war and genocide. wonderful storytelling. arnold zable has the gift of transporting you to a time and place. had the fortune to eat at Scheherazade once with family and think i popped in a couple of times for coffee. sadly it has now closed down. maybe the Monarch is still open for business. upside down plum cake. yum.
July 25, 2009
Zable weaves a heart warming tale using stories of former refugees who escaped from Nazi's and Soviet's around WWII fleeing across Europe to Japan and then China before making there way to a cafe in St. Kilda, Australia.
December 31, 2015
I was deeply moved by these stories of Jewish people who gathered in a Melbourne cafe to relate their experiences of persecution and deprivation during and after the Second World War and the Cold War. Arnold Zable is a brilliant story-teller.
January 31, 2012
A book that for me was very close to home, and brought to life the similar tragedies that my family faced. A truly heart wrenching piece of story telling - the Jewish way.
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