Cheder Cafe - a festival venue

Café and community center

Cheder is a cafe where you will drink good coffee, including our specialty – coffee brewed in a findjan, the original Israeli pot; tea with mint; eat the best hummus in town and dishes inspired by Middle Eastern cuisine, but also participate in many cultural and educational events.

Cheder in Yiddish is a Jewish elementary school

Referring to the original meaning of our name, we enable encounters with contemporary Jewish culture, both from the Diaspora and from Israel. As the festival’s “house of culture,” the Cheder provides a year-round program of events: concerts, lectures, workshops, meetings, and events for children, where one can learn about and personally experience various aspects of Jewish culture.

Cheder – the official club of the Jewish Culture Festival

History of the venue

From 1890, a Jewish house of prayer, Chevra Ner Tamid (Brotherhood of Eternal Light), existed in the building at 36 Józefa Street, exactly where the Cheder is today. Desecrated during the war, it never again returned to its original role. For many post-war years, the charitable Brother Albert Society operated in the former prayer house premises.

In 2008, the Jewish Culture Festival, after restoring and creating the space anew, opened the Cheder, referring to the original meaning of the name, that is, a primary Jewish school. Since then, cultural and educational events have been held there throughout the year, and in February 2009 a café was also launched in the Cheder.