Cafe Atara was founded in 1938. The café’s owner, Heinz Greinschpan, immigrated from Germany in 1938, and after receiving the permit from the franchise in Tel Aviv, he opened his café in Jerusalem.
The coffee was purchased from Herbert Levy’s coffee roasting factory, which was founded in 1924. Levy specialized in roasting, packaging, and marketing coffe he sold to a number of cafés located in the city at the time. He also owned a bakery that supplied cakes and cookies to the same cafés.
Heinz Greinschpan opened the first branch of Cafe Atara across the street from the main post office on Jaffa Street. A year later, his father, Barnhart, and his brother, Siegfried, joined him in managing the business.
After two years, Atara Cafe moved to its mythical location on Ben Yehuda Street, near Zion Square. There, it spent most of its glorious time, in building number seven. During those days, in the 1940s, the British ruled the country and were conducting secret operations against the British Empire rulers in Palestine.
The waiters at the café were Yikes and Hungarians who had just arrived from Europe. The orderly rules of the place suited them like a glove while transitioning from European precision and strictness to the organized chaos of Israel.
Their shift started in the morning at six o’clock sharp and ended at six in the evening. Whoever was late got ice water on their face as a punishment.
In the 1940s, the café was a meeting place for members of the Haganah and the Lahi organizations who followed each other while keeping their own plans and actions secret. The waiters said that members of the Haganah even asked them to pass notes from one another. They did it discreetly, without knowing what was written on them.
The British, who were suspicious of what was going on at the café, visited the place from time to time without notice in an attempt to capture wanted men. However, those managed to flee after the waiters warned them that British detectives were on their way to raid the place.
Except for “underground activities”, the café was also a meeting place for the intellectuals of that time, mainly from the Hayekite movement.
Haim Guri, S. Y. Agnon, a Nobel laureate for literature, who even mentioned the famous café in his stories, Haim Hazaz, Aharon Applefeld who wrote two of his books in the café, Uri Zvi Greenberg, his tsarua, and Amos Oz, who put together the heroes of his book My Michael in the café, all spent time there.
The proximity of the old Knesset, which was housed in the nearby Beit Fromin at the corner of King George Street and Ben Yehuda, acted as a magnet for politicians who preferred Atara to the café in old Knesset.
The café had regular guests such as Yitzhak Navon, Golda Meir, Pinchas Sapir, Moshe Dayan, and many others, except for the Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
The reason for his absence was that David and Paula Ben-Gurion were neighbors of the Greinschpan family, the owners of the café, who used to hold parties in the evening at home. Paula Ben-Gurion often sent security guards and the police to the insolent neighbors on Ramban Street to “immediately stop the disturbing noise.”
Mrs. Greinschpan sent a message to Paula through the police — “The people of Israel also want to be happy, so Mrs. Ben-Gurion should not stop the joy.”
The pictures of the businessmen of the Zionist settlement hung on the café’s walls, and one of the slogans written on the wall by a regular was — “If you don’t like it – go to Zichal” (the café across the street).
There are also stories of romantic betrayals and dates discreetly taking place on the second floor of the café, of students who studied at the nearby Terra Santa monastery, and leading actors who were there non-stop.
After several years, a pastry shop was added to the café and operated until 1996. Then, the mythical café was closed, after a fast-food chain paid a very high price as a close-down fee.
The same year, the famous café moved to Ben Yehuda Street, 15, Jerusalem.
In the 2000s, a wave of deadly attacks hit the city. The Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall and the surrounding area were among the terrorists’ favorite targets.
There were nearly 20 car bombs, suicide bombers, and IEDs in the area which, together with the city center, slowly died.
The café’s owners moved Atara to Gaza Street in Rachavia. The place slowly lost its charm. In April 2007, it closed. On that occasion, the great Jerusalem writer Chaim Guri, who was also a fighter and commander in the Palmach, wrote about the café in an article for Ma’ariv – Café Atara is one of the last remaining symbols in the city, and Jerusalem, and every city, needs symbols. At the end of the story, café Atara, like many Jerusalemites, went to Zion, another historical symbol of the city went down the slopes, on the way to no return.
The crown will never regain its former glory.
This is our Jerusalem — a mythical café with waiters who also acted as clever secret agents, members of the Haganah, the Etzal and the Lehi, who were bitter rivals and drank bitter espresso with a Hungarian accent, where Napoleon and crimson cakes were served to politicians, students, and actors, and Paula Ben-Gurion who didn’t tolerate the music from the parties in the apartment on Ramban Street called the police to allow the Prime Minister to rest. A symbol and an institution of the past that will never be revived, a city that is struggling with itself for its identity, the balance between a glorious history, the old settlement, and its revival after 2,000 years, as opposed to the desire for modernity — a response to the population growth in the most fascinating city in the world
Shabbat of peace to the far and near Jerusalem
Photographer – unknown
