The Astoria Center of Israel Book Club will be launching in the next month or so, and we’d love your feedback as to when we might meet. The club will meet approximately every other month. Please complete the form here.
The first book will be A Rich Brew by Shachar Pinsker.
A Rich Brew explores the surprising and central role that cafés played in shaping modern Jewish culture from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. Literary scholar Shachar M. Pinsker argues that cafés across six major cities — Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, New York, and Tel Aviv — became vital “thirdspaces” where Jewish writers, thinkers, artists, and political activists met, debated, created, and exchanged ideas. More than just places to drink coffee, these social hubs helped foster creativity and community during a time of rapid urbanization and migration. Drawing on memoirs, archival documents, literature, and visual culture, Pinsker shows how café life influenced literature, politics, art, and theater and helped define what modern Jewish culture would become.