The old cafes of Jerusalem .. social, cultural and national episodes whose stories have ceased to exist

The old Jerusalem cafes disappeared, but the stories of their visitors and their memories of them always revive them. It was a refuge for men and a reliable place for holding tribal reconciliation sessions, a home for intellectuals and a starting point for political movement and the distribution of leaflets.

Perhaps the Zaatarah Café - which is located to the left of the visitor as he descends the stairs of the Damascus Gate from the inside - is one of the most important cafes whose career ended by closing it and deporting its owner Khalil Zaatarah, who continued his father’s career in running the cafe after his departure.

Al-Jazeera Net searched about who this cafe was an integral part of his daily life, so she went to the theater actor Hussam Abu Aisha, whose father Saleh 39 years worked in the Zaatarah cafe before his departure, and his main job was to prepare "the shisha Al-Tambak Al-Ajami" for the cafe's visitors.

Hussam spoke at length about his memories in the café, which he lived by accompanying his father daily, and working in his place in the event of his illness.

Cafes used to open their doors in the Old City right after dawn prayers. My father would receive customers with a cup of tea and put inside it the herb of milk that he picked daily from Al-Aqsa courtyards, so every customer would find his cup and next to him, they would eat their breakfast and go to their work. Eight men were waiting for the cafe every day before it opened. "

Daily experiences

39-year-old Hussam's father used to go with her daily from his home in the Al-Saadia neighborhood in the old city to Al-Aqsa Mosque, and from there to Za'tara cafe to practice his work, which included many sweet and bitter experiences according to his son.

On the national role that the cafes played, which made them vulnerable to inspection, sabotage and prosecution, which reached the point of closing its doors permanently, Hussam said that the leaflets used to reach the cafe, so his father carried them under the tray and placed the leaflet for the customer in a smooth manner, so that everyone could read it.

Zaatarah Cafe in Bab Al Amoud from the inside (Al Jazeera)

Newspapers and books were also read in cafes and passed from one customer to another, and young men under the age of 30 were forbidden to enter this café, which Hussam entered, except for the presence of his father, and stored in his memory for decades many stories and memories.

The lemonade and tamarind drinks, which Jerusalemites are famous for preparing, had a special flavor in the café - according to Hussam - so he used to run to shovel a large plastic container tied to an iron chain of the two drinks, to quench his thirst as he returned from his school located outside the historic Jerusalem wall.

It is noteworthy that these two drinks were distributed by the owner of the café free of charge to about 400 men after the completion of a tribal reconciliation between two conflicting families. “The leaders of the villages of Ramallah and Bethlehem went to the Old City and went to cafes and held tribal reconciliation sessions there, and the word of these people had great weight and prestige.”

Abu Aisha concluded his speech to Al-Jazeera Net by touching on the rituals of cafes during the month of Ramadan, as hundreds of people gathered in them to listen to the storyteller after the Tarawih prayer, who used to go from one cafe to another to tell his story.

The Jerusalemite theater actor Hussam Abu Aisha (Al Jazeera)

After the storyteller, we were waiting for Sheikh Abdul Hamid Hammoud, who would start the evening with cheers for the Naqshbandi, followed by prophetic praises, then start playing the oud and ring his throat with the songs of Umm Kulthum, and when the sound of the Holy Qur’an that precedes the dawn prayer comes from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, he calls everyone to go to their homes to have the Suhoor meal and prepare to perform Al-fajr prayer".

The doors of the cafes are closed, but they open the appetite of their visitors and keep them eager to hear the rest of this or that story on the following evening, and on top of it is the story of “Antar” and “Abu Zaid,” according to the 70-year-old Maqdisi Yahya Shabana, who still sells newspapers in the kiosk located between the Siam and Za'tara cafes.

Shabana said that the storyteller was an integral part of the atmosphere of cafes in Jerusalem in the past, and one of them was from the Saadia neighborhood and the other was an Egyptian living in Jerusalem.

"The cafe goers used to buy dailies from me, and I used to sell thousands of copies. But today I only sell 80 copies as the cafes and their visitors have disappeared."

Cultural cafes

In addition to the cafes that were revived by popular narratives and "Karakuz", other cafes were famous for cultural circles, most notably the "Tramps" cafe located near Bab al-Khalil, one of the gates of the Old City, which opened in 1918.

This cafe has succeeded - according to the book Al-Mashhad Al-Hadhariya in the City of Jerusalem - in attracting dozens of Jerusalem's intellectuals from famous literature and politicians, most notably Khalil Sakakini, Khalil Al-Khalidi, Saeed Jarallah, Najib Nassar and Bendali Al-Jawzi.

The café continued to hold a weekly literary symposium titled "The Ring of Wednesday", which was attended by many Palestinian and Arab literary figures.

The sign is still standing despite the cafe's closure in the 1970s (Al-Jazeera)

The patrons of this cafe formed what was known in the past as the Tramp Party in 1921, and Sakakini gave this name to the café, which at that time belonged to the mayor of the Greek Orthodox community, Issa Michel Tabbah.

In the same book by authors Ishaq Al-Badiri and Qasim Abu Harb, it is reported that the beginning of the emergence of cafes in the city of Jerusalem dates back to the 16th century AD, according to the records of the Sharia court in Jerusalem.

And the first coffee makers in the holy city were Ahmed Al-Qahwaji, and they had a union where Salah Al-Din Darwish Al-Qahwaji was elected Sheikh of the Al-Qahwaji sect in 1590.

All old Jerusalem cafes closed their doors permanently, and turned to other specialties.

But the Siam Café, which is located at the entrance to the Al-Attarin Market, has remained steadfast until today, and the visitors come daily from inside and outside the Old City to enjoy the Al-Tambak Al-Ajami shisha, but they are deprived of it temporarily to close the cafe currently due to the Corona pandemic.