Examining the convergence of cafés, their urban milieu, and Jewish creativity, Shachar Pinsker argues that coffeehouses anchored a silk road of modern Jewish literature and culture. He uncovers a network of interconnected cafés that were central to the modern Jewish experience in a time of migration and urbanization, from Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, and Berlin to New York City and Tel Aviv.

Shachar Pinsker is a Professor of Judaic Studies and Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan. He held visiting professor positions at Harvard, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion, and the Hebrew University. Pinsker is the author of two award-winning books: Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe (Stanford University Press, 2011), and A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture (NYU Press, 2018). He is the editor and co-editor of Hebrew, Gender, and Modernity (University of Maryland Press, 2007), Women’s Hebrew Poetry on American Shores (Wayne State University Press, 2016), and Where the Sky and the Sea Meet: Israeli Yiddish Stories (Magnes Press, forthcoming). He is currently completing a book on Yiddish in Israeli literature, and directing the NEH supported research project: The Feuilleton, the Public Sphere, and Modern Jewish Cultures.

Supported by the generosity of the Kaye and Radov families.