A Rich Brew: How Cafes Created Modern Jewish Culture

by Shachar M. Pinsker

A fascinating glimpse into the world of the coffeehouse and its role in shaping modern Jewish culture Unlike the synagogue, the house of study, the community center, or the Jewish deli, the caf� is rarely considered a Jewish space. Yet, coffeehouses profoundly influenced the creation of modern Jewish culture from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. With roots stemming from the Ottoman Empire, the coffeehouse and its drinks gained increasing popularity in Europe. The "otherness," and the mix of the national and transnational characteristics of the coffeehouse perhaps explains why many of these caf�s were owned by Jews, why Jews became their most devoted habitu�s, and how caf�s acquired associations with Jewishness. Examining the convergence of caf�s, their urban milieu, and Jewish creativity, Shachar M. Pinsker argues that caf�s anchored a silk road of modern Jewish culture. He uncovers a network of interconnected caf�s that were central to the modern Jewish experience in a time of migration and urbanization, from Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, and Berlin to New York City and Tel Aviv. A Rich Brew explores the Jewish culture created in these social spaces, drawing on a vivid collection of newspaper articles, memoirs, archival documents, photographs, caricatures, and artwork, as well as stories, novels, and poems in many languages set in caf�s. Pinsker shows how Jewish modernity was born in the caf�, nourished, and sent out into the world by way of print, politics, literature, art, and theater. What was experienced and created in the space of the coffeehouse touched thousands who read, saw, and imbibed a modern culture that redefined what it meant to be a Jew in the world.

Genres: Jewish, History, Judaism, Nonfiction, Judaica, 19th Century

384 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 15, 2018

About the author

This author also writes under the pen name Shachar Pinsker.

Reviews

[Lada Moskalets · Rating 4 out of 5]

Дослідження того, як єврейська модерна культура виявляла себе через кав'ярні. Автор обирає декілька міст - Одесу, Варшаву, Відень, Берлін, Нью-Йорк і Тель-Авів і через літературу показує життя літературної тусовки у кав'ярнях. Його основний концепт це те, що кафе є третім простором, поміж публічним і приватним, вигаданим і реальним, маскулінним і фемінінним і єврейські письменники початку ХХ століття, які також були поміж і посеред різних категорій, якнайкраще можуть цю культуру відтворювати.
Мені найцікавіше було спостерігати, наскільки кафе є все ж східно-європейським (центрально-європейським?) явищем, що видно з розділів про Нью-Йорк і Тель-Авів. Ці два міста мають свою культуру - пабів і східних кав'ярень, але коли сотні голодних єврейських літераторів прибувають до Штатів і Ізраїлю, то там також починає творитися культура кафе. Бо саме в кафе можна сидіти з чашкою еспресо і не купувати більше нічого, а працювати чи соціалізуватися.
Скільки б Львів чи Відень не пишалися своєю кавою, але підсумок книжки сумний - літературні кафе, як єврейське явище померли ще перш ніж встигли померти носії культури. Те що існує зараз, хай би то були мережеві старбакси чи альтернативна кава - місця ескапізму і колективної самотності, а не соціалізації
Ця книжка може стати стартовим пунктом до творення списку літератури єврейського модернізму, чудові назви.
Мені бракувало Галичини і Буковини, хоча про них тут є дуже милі згадки.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mildly interesting book about Jewish cafe culture in six cities: Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, New York, and Tel Aviv.

In all of these cities, coffeehouses were to some extent a gathering place for artists and intellectuals. In the first four, coffeehouse culture, or more accurately Jewish culture generally, was smashed by Communists (in Odessa) and Nazis (in the other three cities).

In the last two, coffeehouse culture died out more gradually- in New York as early as the 1940s and 1950s, in Tel Aviv a little later. Pinsker doesn't seem completely sure why this is the case; perhaps electronic media was a substitute, or perhaps affluence caused more people to socialize at home.

[Hallie Cantor · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I read the hardcover, not the Kindle, edition.) Charming, "richly" researched history of cafes with a Jewish spin -- their presence in secular Jewish life and their social influence.

Reading this, I wondered, "What was in the coffee?" Apparently these citadels to the caffeinated attracted every artist, radical, or kook (mostly men) who sought a substitute for the synagogue and yeshiva. Marx, Herzel, Trotsky, Freud -- all of them at some point graced local cafes. It was a place for male bonding ("homosocial"), fiery arguments, and some really bad and tragic ideas. This book is indirectly an elegy for the whole Enlightenment.

Coffee, which originated in the Ottoman Empire, was brought to 17th century London, whence it spread throughout other cities in Europe. From the start, Jews dominated the trade. They were responsible for much of its importation; they created establishments that ranged from hole-in-the-wall to glamorous. Cafes had a particular appeal of "otherness" to those who were shut out of the elitist (and anti-Semitic) clubs and taverns and who found in the cafes sophisticated yet non-threatening. These cafes offered a sort of "safe space," or, in the author's words, a "third space" that welcomed Jews, along with coffee (also tea) and food on a budget. This alone had great appeal among the bohemians. For cosmopolitan Jews, these cafes were a lifeline, a link throughout Europe for people of similar ilk.

Although cafes were ubiquitous in Europe and the Middle East, the author focuses on six cities: Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, New York, and Tel Aviv. These, he felt, reflected a distinctive type of cafe and customer. All formed a sort of "silk road" for the marginalized and rootless, who were drawn to coffee houses like fish to water. The character of the city reflected the clientele -- Odessa was a mecca for merchants, entrepreneurs, and gangsters; Warsaw for the "OTD"-types escaping yeshiva and sliding into radicalism; Vienna for journalists and bourgeoisie; Berlin for the assimilated and artistic who were highly active in German film and media. Cafes competed with each other for clientele and ambience, each offering a certain exoticism and in some ways becoming just as snobbish as the Gentile-owned establishments. All of these cafes would meet tragic ends, their clientele destroyed by Hitler and Stalin. (Interestingly, the Warsaw ghetto also became famous for its cafes, which attracted not only talented or connected Jews, but Nazi officers.)

Although New York and Tel Aviv cafes, like their European counterparts, attracted the avant-garde and intelligentsia, the dynamics differed. No longer were Jewish patrons "outsiders" or "wanderers" in search of spiritual anchors and sustenance. Their rise in political, national, and economic status, as well as their self-image, contributed to the general decline of cafe culture. Basically, the emigre customer base aged out, and photographs show a bunch of loners at restaurant tables.

Today Jews maintain a visible presence in the coffee trade, but Starbucks is a far cry from the haunts that were the intellectual and creative powerhouses of the past two centuries. Perhaps, in way, we Jews have outgrown that attachment -- though luckily not the coffee!

The author's style may be too academic for casual reading -- this book is published by a university press -- although the lengthy blocks of prose are accompanied by charming illustrations of coffee houses and caricatures of the famous or notorious. Nevertheless, if you're Jewish and a coffee lover like me, and you want to dive right in to a fascinating history, you will find this book as pleasing as a cup of joe.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished: 29.12.2018
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: C
Conclusion:

Unlike the synagogue, the house of study, the community center, or the Jewish deli, the café is rarely considered a Jewish space. Yet, coffeehouses profoundly influenced the creation of
…modern Jewish culture from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Shachar Pinsker (professor of Hebrew literature) discusses on the influence of cafés on modern Jewish culture.
Democracy was not made in the streets but among….the saucers!
Irony: We all go to coffee shops…but today nobody talks.
You only hear the click/clack of laptop keyboards.
How…times have changed.
This book may interest someone is a avid fan of 19th C Jewish literature.
I found it difficult to like because of my lack of knowledge of this literary genre.
But you may like it!

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book because of my ancestral roots. My family owned a coffee house in Vienna during the Fin de Siecle. It was fascinating to read a more historical and sociological account of this period and see how closely it matched up to stories that have been handed down.
Another side of my family came from the Russian Pale of Settlement outside of Odessa, so that section also had personal meaning to me.

[Ethan Fraenkel · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is a very comprehensive and in my view convincing argument that cafes as an institution served as transnationally linked spaces intimately connected with the interplay between Jewishness, modernity, diaspora and even (male) homosocial bonding. while the text was occasionally exhaustive in its detail, pinsker provides many fascinating anecdotes from various artistic mediums to illustrate his thesis: whether the perhaps immoral and certainly shocking existence of fancy cafes in Holocaust-era ghettos which primarily served the Jewish bourgeoisie and the Nazi officers who the former relied upon to maintain said establishments to the German-Jewish writer Else Lasker-Schuler who was known to transgress normative gender norms not only through her mere appearance in the male-dominated space of the cafe, but also due to her reputation from masquerading as her male or "androgynous" literary characters- essentially in drag.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

When people move, they often look for places to gather with others like themselves. For some Jews, that means finding a synagogue or study hall to attend. However, what of those Jews who moved to cities in early modern times and had no interest in religion? In “A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture” (New York University Press), Shachar M. Pinsker looks at the modern Jewish experience in six cities during the 19th and 20th centuries to show how Jews used cafés as a space to socialize and debate art and politics. He believes these interactions were central to the creation of modern Jewish culture.
See the rest of my review at http://www.thereportergroup.org/Artic...

[Yossi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I read the Introduction and the Conclusion of the book along with the 2 1/2 chapters (Odessa, half of the Warsaw chapter and the chapter on Tel-Aviv) of the six chapters/cities covered in the book.

The book is specifically about modern 'secular' Jewish culture and how cafes of a certain era (1850-1939 and into the 60s/early 70s in NYC and Tel-Aviv) helped shape that culture. If the topic interests you by all means read the book. If it really interests you you will want to read all the details of cafe life in the six cities covered. To get the authors main arguments though, its not necessary to read all the details. The Tel-Aviv chapter interested me simply because I've heard of the places mentioned and can locate them today.

[Susan Rothenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A interesting history of cafes in Europe and Israel that brought Jewish people, mostly men, together as they moved from religious Judaism to the cultural and intellectual world. It isn’t an easy read, given all the lists of names and what all the details given about what happened at the cafes, but it definitely shares an important part of history.

[Nasus]

Theory of the "thirdspace" very unconvincing
History of cafes in Odessa, Warsaw, Berlin & Vienna interesting.
NY & Tel Aviv not so much.
Loved reference to Jabotinsky's novel, The Five, which I recommend!

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but very
Scholarly. Lots
Of
Famous
Names and literary
References

[Ben Vos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enlightening in its detail, evokes the atmosphere well, then draws convincing conclusions on why "Jewish cafés" thrived when and where they did.

[Nessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read bits of this. Fascinating look into cafe culture and its intersection with Judaism.