A New York coffee shop made from memories

At Spiegel in New York City’s trendy East Village, don’t bother asking your waiter for the WiFi password to connect your gadgets. Unlike most city coffee shops, Spiegel’s Israeli-born owner, Shmulik Avital, is working hard to create a unique environment – one that doesn’t include laptop- lined tables.

Opened in mid-March of this year, Spiegel aims to fill a gap in the New York lifestyle that native Israelis know all about: coffee-shop culture.

In fast-paced New York, a place like Spiegel is hard to come by. New Yorkers are known for moving quickly, enjoying things on-the-go and being constantly logged into their emails. Israelis, despite being very hardworking, know how to take a break and unwind. This, in part, was Avital’s motivation in creating a new kind of eatery.

THE MENU boasts Israeli food staples such as burekas and shakshuka/SPIEGEL

Avital’s other inspiration was to recreate a piece of history that was lost in Jerusalem during the second intifada.

It was a warm spring evening in March 2002 when a terrorist from Silwan entered Cafe Moment in Jerusalem’s bustling Rehavia neighborhood and blew himself up, killing himself and 11 Israelis, all but one under the age of 30. The bombing – which wounded 52 others – followed a string of similar and equally tragic attacks, but was, for Jerusalemites and all of Israel, an especially raw and traumatic event.

This was because at its height, Cafe Moment had been a sort of cultural center in Rehavia, filled with students and other young people. Crowds would gather day and night to pass the time.

“Moment was the neighborhood living room, where everybody, all day, after work, during a day off, would come together to talk about politics, music. It was culture central, it was a social club,” Avital explains.

Avital was a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in early 2000 when the second intifada began. Tensions in the city rose, but daily life continued.

He studied and enjoyed free time with his friends, often at Cafe Moment located on Aza Street, not far from his student apartment, also in Rehavia.

One day, as he sat at the bar, he overheard the manager telling another worker they were short-staffed because a waitress had failed to show up. Familiar with the workings of the place but having no experience, Avital jumped in and offered to help.

The shift was his first as a waiter, and Avital says it was a defining moment in his life. He picked up shifts at the cafe for over a year, until his studies were finished and he was ready for life’s next challenge.

Not long after that, Avital and an army buddy decided they too wanted to open a coffee shop. A location opened up, also on Aza Street, just a few blocks from Moment. Ultimately, however, he and his friend weren’t able to gather enough funds to pull it off; Avital ended up managing coffee shops in New York City.

Meanwhile, in Israel, the intifada was in full force and suicide bombers threatened lives on a daily basis. Cafe Moment remained busy, full of students, and eventually moved to a larger location up the street, to the same spot where Avital had almost opened his own cafe.

Shortly thereafter, the unthinkable happened.

The city had come alive again after a quiet Shabbat, and Cafe Moment was busier than ever. At 10:30 p.m., a suicide bomber entered the building and detonated the bomb he was carrying. Two of Avital’s best friends were among those killed. He says he’ll never forget the phone call he received with the tragic news.

With the typical Sabra’s nothing-canget- us-down attitude, Avital decided to honor the tragedy in the best way he knew: through a coffee shop. He was finally able to open his own joint, dedicating many aspects of it to honoring Moment and the Jerusalem symbol it once was.

At Spiegel, he wanted to bring a piece of Israel to New York, and expose New Yorkers to Israeli-style coffee shops: a social environment with good food and quality coffee, to bring people together.

As for the cafe’s name, Avital had always loved old films and respected filmmaker Sam Spiegel’s connection to Israel. Spiegel, born in 1903 in Austria, fled the Nazis and built himself a spectacular Hollywood career, producing movies such as Lawrence of Arabia.

Throughout his lifetime he made many contributions to the State of Israel and had ties to many of it’s historic leaders.

Avital admired Spiegel’s dedication to Israel and felt it a good fit to name his new business after a triumphant supporter of the Jewish State.

Avital has worked hard to create a space that honors the spirit of Cafe Moment.

Spiegel, similar in style and decor to Moment, features menu items from the original hotspot, including foodstuffs like shakshuka and Israeli salad.

Indeed, Avital has found a way to commemorate the victims and what Moment symbolized, while also reminding New Yorkers that slowing down is okay.

He notes that helping New Yorkers understand the way he thinks coffee shops should be is also a way for him to heal.

“For me, the coffee shop is sort of like the main place, other than your house or your office. It’s the place you can come alone or with friends, and meet other people and socialize. It’s about getting people together to connect,” he explains. “You know, they say something like 70 percent of East Villagers are single, and many of them live alone. I really wanted to make a place where the neighborhood could come together.”

The bar in the center of the restaurant exemplifies this desire. Avital says he has already noticed strangers starting conversations at the bar. In a city like New York, known for its less-thanfriendly daily grind, this type of environment is a rarity.

“Something amazing happened the other day!” Avital exclaims, unable to contain his excitement. “A couple told the bartender that they started talking on the bar, and little did they know, they lived in the same building.”

SPIEGEL cafe/SPIEGEL

In a centerpiece Spiegel diners can’t help but notice, a bookshelf along one of the cafe’s walls is lined with wholebean coffee and decorative items. In the center of one of the shelves a bumper sticker with Hebrew letters is featured, translating to “You can’t stop the Moment,” a slogan that circulated around Jerusalem with classic Israeli defiance following the 2002 attack.

The saying, in many ways as tragic as it is, captures the feeling you have as you walk away from Spiegel, with a satisfied palate and caffeine running through your veins. If a suicide bombing can be so beautifully honored and the victims given a memorial with the recreation of Cafe Moment, then Israelis can triumph over anything.

Spiegel is located at 26 1st Avenue, East Village, New York City: (212) 228-2894; info@spiegelnyc.com; spiegelnyc.com