New coffee shop gives secular and religious women a chance to network

jerusalem | There was not an empty seat in the house at the grand opening of the Shani (Women Sitting Together) coffee shop in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood earlier this month. More than 100 women from various socioeconomic, cultural and religious backgrounds gathered around candlelit tables to chat over coffee and cake.

"It's a dream come true," said 41-year-old Orly Reuveny, who came up with the idea of the cooperative women's coffee house a year ago, after reading about business opportunities offered by the Jewish Agency's Partnership 2000 program for initiatives involving collaboration between different sectors of the community.

"My life goal is to develop women's leadership and to encourage the involvement of women in community life in multicultural localities like Ramot," explained Reuveny, a secular woman who is currently completing her Ph.D. at Ben-Gurion University on the role of women in community politics. "I want more women to join committees in order to enable them to express their views and influence the decision-making process in the neighborhood."

Inspired by the movie "Chocolat," depicting the arrival of a talented confectionery artist to a small town in France who ends up stimulating a civil rebellion, Reuveny envisions the new coffee shop will provide a similar environment, bringing together divergent people in the Jerusalem neighborhood.

"Just like the chocolate shop in the movie, I want our coffee shop to cause the women of Ramot to interact with one another in order to stimulate personal growth and change."

After gathering the support of a Ramot community council member and a local welfare bureau social worker, Reuveny was ready to begin. The first step was to select a group of qualified and motivated volunteers. Established a year and a half ago, the Ramot Community Center Women's Forum provided the perfect place to start. Between forum members and non-affiliated residents of the community, more than 30 women applied to participate, a mix of haredi (fervently religious), modern Orthodox, traditional and secular.

Of those who tried out, 15 were selected to take a fully subsidized six-month business course sponsored by the Jewish Agency. In the meantime, the women developed the coffee-shop business plan with the help of a financial adviser.

Upon completion of the course, the women were divided into three groups: a culture team, in charge of providing the shop's lecturers and entertainers; a communications team, designated to establish communication between the patrons and documenting the project on film for community television; and a business operations team, responsible for designing the concept and atmosphere of the shop and gathering the materials necessary to run the business.

After obtaining permission to use a room in Ramot's community center building one evening a week, their dream finally became a reality.

For now, patrons pay a nominal fee of about $2.25 for coffee and cake. All profits will go toward the purchase of supplies as well as for inviting guest lecturers and performers.

"We wanted to schedule cultural content that would be interesting for all of the different kinds of women," said culture committee member Oria Hadad, who booked lecturer Rachel Bolton, a haredi advertising guru, and spiritual singer Elana Ilya to perform on the opening night.

According to Hadad, a modern Orthodox woman who works as a receptionist at an alternative medicine clinic, finding cultural activities of interest to all sectors of Ramot society proved easier than she expected.

"When you put your prejudice aside, you realize that we actually have a lot in common," she said.

Hadad herself plans to conduct a lecture on alternative therapies.

"We all possess different knowledge and different skills to assist each other," she said, and noted that fellow cafe members provide the perfect first audience to pitch new business ideas and services. "The cafe has given me the confidence to believe that it is possible for me to open my own alternative medicine business."

Mutual respect is the cornerstone of communications team member Ruth Danon's philosophy. A professor at the Hebrew University who categorizes herself as traditional, she was intent on joining the project to learn about the cultures of other women.

Haredi women are the hardest community to get involved in the project. "It is a big challenge to bring the haredi women to this project," said Reuveny, who revealed that for one woman involved in the project, going out on her own to the cafe was a first-time event since the eve of her wedding seven years ago.

That's why Rotem Cohen (not her real name) began combing local synagogues to gather more women for the project. Cohen, a 34-year-old mother of three who runs a day-care center from her home, has already attracted the participation of 10 haredi women despite the predicted disapproval of the community rabbis.

"I believe more and more women will decide to come," said Cohen, explaining that the women were initially concerned about a few issues, including kashrut, cultural content and the degree of modesty of the other women. When these concerns were put to rest, several women expressed an interest in participating.

"The whole concept of going out is very difficult for a lot of haredi women," emphasized Cohen.

Indeed, there are only two coffee shops in Jerusalem that are appropriate for haredi women to patronize.

Cohen made sure to mention that the women did not require the permission of their husbands to join.

"I don't need permission to go out. Haredi women go out and jog and they even go to coffee shops if the environment provides it. It's the fulfillment of a dream to bring all of the communities of this neighborhood to sit together in solidarity. Now that I am seeing it actually happen, it is very exciting for me."