New to Jerusalem and to adulthood, Rutha serves Café Shiras devoted customers with a quiet compassion and a sensitive gaze, collecting their stories and absorbing them at her peril. Avigdor, the melancholy and somewhat weary café owner, philosophizes about love as he attends to the needs of his patrons while ignoring his own. Christian, a young religious pilgrim, has come to Jerusalem to find God but stumbles upon a much different revelation. These characters form the heart of this wry, often poignant novel narrated through a series of vignettes. They are joined by a colorful cast of characters who frequent the literary cafélong-married couples, young lovers, an eccentric poet, and a traumatized veteranall finding refuge and occasionally wisdom among their motley urban community. Closely based on Ehrlichs own experiences over the twenty-five years he devoted to running a café that became an important Jerusalem cultural venue and landmark, Café Shira is a work of disarming tenderness and bittersweet love.
- | Author: David Ehrlich
- | Publisher: Syracuse University Press
- | Publication Date: Jun 14, 2022
- | Number of Pages: 224 pages
- | Language: English
- | Binding: Paperback/Fiction
- | ISBN-10: 0815611420
- | ISBN-13: 9780815611424
