The empty cup is filling again: the morning “parliaments” of Jaffa Street in Jerusalem are coming back to life. Just weeks ago, the chairs were overturned, and the tiled sidewalks echoed mostly with silence. The IDF strike in Iran had driven everyday life far away
Today, that rhythm has fully returned. Not through loudspeakers, but from the mouth of Nissim, analyzing the situation for the thousandth time with his regular group of friends around a table on Jaffa Street – an artery that once carried lifetimes and is now pulsing again with multigenerational energy
Como estas? On the way to Mahane Yehuda
Despite the absence of the light rail due to ongoing construction, Jerusalem’s early risers make their way to central cafés. They rush to their regular spots under umbrellas, armed with hats and folded newspapers. In the distance, the sounds of Mahane Yehuda market echo – carts wheeling goods, forklifts loading fresh produce. An invitation for falafel, shawarma, and crispy delights
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Most of the regulars are gray-haired men who have somewhere to be each morning – retirees who’ve created their own social club, stretching from morning to early afternoon
"Hey, how are you? ¿Como estas? How’s your lumbago – did you apply the Voltaren cream last night?" That’s how the day begins.
“No news today, just backgammon and the stories of Haim Mizrahi
Haim Mizrahi, a former taxi driver, is well known among Jerusalem residents. His father was also a cabbie – but not a parliament member. Instead of arguing with their wives about bills, children, and life’s many details, they now slip into a leisurely Jerusalem routine: coffee, bourekas, orange or carrot juice. Occasionally, an elderly woman joins and spices up the conversation with lunch plans or an update from "Big Brother" – was Yossi or Loran evicted
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In the Armenian Quarter – international café talk
Not far from Safra Square, another regular “parliament” has convened for years – a mix of mostly men, some religious, some secular, bearing the same weathered marks of time as Jaffa and King George streets
A passerby teases them
“So, what’s the decision in your cabinet today? Any deals coming soon
Avimelech, a retired Ministry of Religion employee, chuckles
“Here we talk about life. Some of us have been around since Café Herod. It started with tea and a croissant – and became something we can’t live without
During the last war, they stayed home. They didn’t know how their friends were doing. They missed this corner of comfort – a place to release, share, laugh
At the next table, some work on laptops. Others rest their eyes on passersby. Some even nap in the shade
Jaffa Street – which began as an Ottoman-era trade route and runs through the city's history of trains, treaties, and tension – now finds hope in a coffee cup and a human voice
A similar morning ritual takes place at the entrance to the Armenian Quarter in the Old City. Over steaming black coffee with a hypnotic cardamom scent, the conversation may be in Arabic – but the rhythm is universal. The need to gather, to talk, to reconnect in a fractured world is the same.
