Published: 17 June 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
LAST WEEK, A RESTAURANT owner in Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighbourhood petitioned the High Court of Justice to allow restaurants and cafes to be allowed to operate on Shabbat without losing their kashrut certification.
He argued that it is unfair that his restaurant, which scrupulously adheres to all the rules of kashrut, should be denied certification just because it opens on the Jewish Sabbath, as Haaretz reported on June 3.
Historical records preserved in the archives of the National Library show that, in fact, an interesting precedent does exist. In the mid-18th century, the rabbis of Prague sanctioned the opening of coffeehouses on Shabbat, and even permitted this in the city’s Jewish quarter.
Thus, in what historians refer to as the early modern period, something was occurring that seems practically inconceivable now, in the 21st century: On Shabbat morning, on the way to synagogue, members of the Jewish community would stop to “refuel” at a café.
The decision to permit coffeehouses to remain open on Shabbat was not made easily.
FULL STORY Coffee en route to synagogue on Shabbat? No problem in 18th-century Prague (Haaretz)
Image: A Game of Draughts at Cafe Lamblin by Louis Leopold Boilly (Louis Léopold Boilly)
