The Pub at the End of the World

Most places are shuttered these days.

But not the Pub at the End of the World.

It sits on a quiet street in Jerusalem — a street that once thrummed with poetry and debate, back when the Ottoman Empire was cracking at the seams. Back when people gathered in salons to drink, argue, and dream. Muslims. Christians. Jews. Together. Not some fantasy, not a slogan and not the beginning of a joke — just a Tuesday night.

That Jerusalem feels like another planet now.
But this little bar — under a different name, with the same intentions — still hums with the remnants of that spirit.

The cocktails are ok and the whiskey’s fine. The beer is fresh and cold and crisp enough to cut through the heat — or the grief. But no one’s here for the drinks.

They come for something else.

They come for the table outside by the door, where a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian still sit together — not as a statement, but as a habit. They come for the ones inside, who shuffle in from the heat or the heartbreak looking for shelter. For music. For a familiar face.

Tori Amos stares down from a gilded frame near the bar, bathed in the soft glow of a museum light like a red-lipped patron saint.
The music changes with the mood — Motown, punk, 90s alt rock — but last night they were playing old standards from the 1940s. Trying to capture something from that other war. The last one, maybe, that felt like a true fight between good and evil.

“As Time Goes By” played low and slow, and we all felt it: the fear, the fatigue, the flicker of purpose.

That old kind of knowing.

That we’re in something deep.

That it matters.

There’s a guy who always sits in the same spot near the door. Shows up early. Drinks orange juice with grenadine and says he’s a pilot. Says he hasn’t flown in half a century, but if you can find him a plane, he’ll take you to Larnaca, no questions asked.

Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter.
It’s the intention that counts.
And I’m always up for a good story.

Once, an Estonian sea captain blew in during the winter game, wearing a fur coat and carrying seashells in his pocket.

The only reason I know I didn’t imagine this is because things like this happen all the time at the Pub at the End of the World,  and besides, the next morning there was a seashell in my handbag.

At the end of the bar sits the spiritual mayor of Jerusalem. He has seen the city in every one of her moods and is still waiting for her to show him something new. Or old. Or both.

The Elf on the Shelf from last Christmas still dangles from the handle of a beer mug. No one’s had the heart to take him down. Maybe it’s a superstition. Maybe it’s just that no one remembers when he first appeared.

This place doesn’t talk politics. Not loudly, anyway.

We tell jokes.

We laugh too loud.

We make song requests that actually get played — a wartime exception.

Because everyone’s tired. Everyone’s raw.
But somehow, in here, we remember who we are. Not just what we’ve been through.

It isn’t really called The Pub at the End of the World.
But maybe it should be.
Because when the world feels like it’s unraveling, this is where we go to stay stitched together — if only for one more round.