The best part of this week was Jerusalem cafés.
On Monday, I met an old friend along the Mesila. For anyone who hasn’t walked there recently, the entire Baka/Katamon area is currently experiencing what appears to be a never-ending archaeological dig, theoretically in preparation for future light rail tracks. Streets look more like giant pits, sidewalks have ceased to exist, and every few feet (especially on Emek Refaim) there’s a man in a reflective vest staring thoughtfully into a hole, occasionally doing something that may, one day, contribute to a train line.
Despite the construction, (right now, seemingly just destruction), the Mesila itself was still beautiful.
The sun was out, the path was full of people walking dogs and pushing strollers, and the cafés along the trail were doing great business selling beverages and pastries at prices that made me strongly consider paying cash so I wouldn’t have to face my financial sins later.
My friend and I sat on the grass and spent a couple hours talking about life, marriage, work, and whatever other trivialities came to mind. No great philosophical conclusions were reached. But something about sitting in the sun with good company made the entire day feel easier.
Then Wednesday arrived.
Wednesday was, professionally speaking, a total trainwreck (not in a dramatic way at all, of course, that would be very unlike me). It was just one of those days where every email and conversation felt vaguely hostile, and every basic task took three times longer than it should. By two o’clock I had reached a stage of mild despair where I began questioning not only my career choices but possibly my entire personality.
When work finally ended, I went to meet another friend on Yafo Street, praying that strong coffee might help me cope with the professional and personal collapse of the previous eight hours.
I arrived around three, expecting a quiet table and maybe a few other exhausted people who were so sick of working from their mamad-slash-home-office that they had brought their laptops outside just to confirm society still existed.
Instead, every restaurant was packed. Seminary students, groups of friends, couples eating leisurely lunches: all ages and varieties of people who appeared to have nowhere urgent to be.
I truly do not understand how Israeli society continues to function this way. How are all the cafés completely full midday on Wednesday? The economy (presumably) still exists. Yet somehow everyone was sitting in the sun drinking iced coffee like it was the first day of a lifelong summer vacation.
I sat down in a thoroughly black mood. But after twenty minutes of watching people walk by, and talking with my friend about completely unimportant things, something shifted.
I stopped thinking about work. I leaned into the simple pleasure of being outside in Jerusalem on a sunny afternoon, among a whole society of people doing exactly the same thing. Within half an hour I was laughing.
I’ve come to appreciate this more and more about life in Israel. There is a rhythm here that feels very unlike the one I remember growing up with in America. Life moves quickly in some ways, certainly, but socially, there is also a remarkable willingness to slow down. To make more time for friends. For long conversations. For coffee that turns into lunch that turns into a Shabbat meal invite.
Maybe some of the lifestyle difference has to do with the kind of person I was when I lived in America. My daily life there revolved almost entirely around school and work. Friends were squeezed in when possible. Leisure was something that happened after everything else was finished, which naturally meant it almost never happened.
I live in Israel because I am an unapologetic idealist, and a Zionist who believes deeply that the future of the Jewish people is here. I absolutely didn’t move across the world in search of superior café culture. But if I’m honest, the differences in Israeli day-to-day cadence have had a very positive impact on my life.
Now, I will admit that I occasionally criticize the Israeli work ethic. I strongly suspect that many employers would hire a majorly underqualified Jewish American over a PhD-holding Israeli simply because we are statistically far more likely to panic about work deadlines.
But the longer I live in Israel, the more I appreciate the priorities that sometimes accompany the overall lower professional drive and slower pace: friends, family, conversation, and the intrinsic understanding that an afternoon spent sitting in a café is not wasted time. It might, in fact, be the most productive part of the week — or so I’m trying to convince myself, for the sake of my continued emotional stability.
Judging by the crowds on Yafo Street most afternoons, the Israelis seem to have figured that out long before I did.
Gabriella Jacobs moved from New York to Israel in 2023. She is a multimedia journalist at The Times of Israel, a BA student at Tel Aviv University, double-majoring in Middle Eastern Studies and Philosophy, and also works as a teaching assistant for the Tikvah Fund’s gap-year program. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband.