Press enter after choosing selection

A Rich Brew : : how Cafes Created Modern Jewish Culture

Pinsker, Shachar M. Book - 2019 909 Pi 1 On Shelf No requests on this item Community Rating: 0 out of 5

Cover image for A rich brew : : how cafes created modern Jewish culture

Sign in to request

Locations
Call Number: 909 Pi
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length Call Number Checkout Length Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor
4-week checkout
909 Pi 4-week checkout On Shelf

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. 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 cafés were owned by Jews, why Jews became their most devoted habitués, and how cafés acquired associations with Jewishness. Examining the convergence of cafés, their urban milieu, and Jewish creativity, Shachar M. Pinsker argues that cafés anchored a silk road of modern Jewish culture. He uncovers a network of interconnected cafés 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 cafés. Pinsker shows how Jewish modernity was born in the café, 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.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

CHOICE Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Table of Contents
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

No community reviews. Write one below!

Cover image for A rich brew : : how cafes created modern Jewish culture


PUBLISHED
[S.l.] : New York University Press, 2019.
Year Published: 2019
Description: 369 pages ; 23 cm.
Language: English
Format: Book

ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
1479874388
9781479874385

SUBJECTS
Cafes.
Coffee -- History.
Jewish people -- History.