Image by Facebook

By Aviya Kushner August 31, 2017

A Tel Aviv coffee shop is offering free challahs for those who need them in a novel way — by leaving challahs on café tables for an hour each Friday afternoon.

Coffee Station at 152 Ibn Gabirol Street, the street Israelis pronounce as Even Gvirol, will have challahs on tables from 3:30-4:30 p.m each Friday, owner Shay Kares posted. Quantities are limited.

“Just come and take,” Kares wrote.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The café is known for elaborate iced-coffee drinks and bagel sandwiches, though this columnist recommends a simple café hafuch and a chocolate ball. Coffee Station is a chain, but the challahs are only available at the Ibn Gabirol branch.

A full-size challah in Tel Aviv generally costs between ten and twenty shekels, and the high cost of food has resulted in social-media campaigns.

One man rebelled against the cost of cottage cheese, and another posted his grocery receipts from Berlin, to highlight the difference in price for items like chocolate pudding with whipped cream on top — known as Milky in Israel. Those grocery receipts went viral.

In response, the deep-discount supermarket chain Cofix offered Milky pudding at the price of two for five shekels. The chain also sells small challahs for six shekels each.

Aviya Kushner is The Forward’s language columnist and the author of The Grammar of God (Spiegel & Grau, 2015). Follow her on Twitter at @AviyaKushner

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount