Welcome to the Culture Cafe

Sometimes the best ideas sneak up onto the café table and sit down, right next to your cappuccino, waiting to be discovered. That’s what happened to my friend Rochelle and me.

We were sitting at Ephraim’s café, our favorite neighborhood coffee shop, enjoying the light summer air and Effie’s unfailing attention, when we found ourselves talking about Jerusalem’s magnificent, overflowing creative life. “There’s so much going on,” one of us said, “and so much worth thought and reflection,” continued the other.

Soon we arrived at the inevitable conclusion: there needs to be a place where cultural events are shared and discussed. There needs to be a place for easy conversation about everything that’s happening – from poetry and dance, to festivals and drama; from new books and art, to lectures, to folk songs, and what it all means.

It became clear that Jerusalem needs a culture café.

So here it is.

Culture café is a blog that invites you to think about the growing, dynamic cultural world in which we live. Jerusalem’s narrow streets and alleys are home to experiments in theater and dance, music and design, film and literature. We will help you discover them. We will bring you people who create and who enable creative works to reach the public. Scholars who study and lecture at institutes all around town will be part of the conversation, too.

Jerusalem is our home, but we do get out now and then to visit other parts of the country. Well beyond our city limits, in Tel Aviv and all around the country there is a blossoming of arts and culture. We want to talk about it all.

We welcome you to join the conversation at Culture Café with your comments and suggestions. Tell us what you’ve seen and heard and read, and what you think about it. You can reach us at CultureCafeStories@gmail.com

And please, invite your friends to the Culture Café. There’s lots of room at our table.