(Thanks to Jcarrot reader, Sara Shalva, for this post)

Last week I was staying with friends in a beautiful apartment off Kikar Hamedina in Northern Tel Aviv.  Down the street a bit were two cafes, with the same name, across the street from each other.  Unlike the US with Starbucks on every corner, this was a bit of an anomaly to me.  I asked my Israeli friends, who explained, “one is kosher, one isn’t.”  Opting for the kosher and kosher l’pesach café because, it was the season, I kept marinating on this silly aspect of life in Israel.  Segregation.  The religious and non-religious water fountains/ eateries.  Separate but equal. 

I’m fascinated with how kashrut both unites us and divides us here in the holy land.  How Jews, through their restaurant choices are segregated into various communities of eaters.  This is also the same in the US, although it seems to be more culturally significant here.  The kosher and non-kosher chain on the same street in Israel seems to be a growing trend. 

Aroma, the ubiquitous coffee shop similar to Starbucks but with much better and cheaper coffee, is opening up a kosher version on the busy up and coming Emek Rafaim street in Jerusalem.  The kosher version will be no more than three blocks from the unkosher version.  And what makes the unkosher version “unkosher”? It remains stubbornly open on Shabbat.

And so, in just a few months we will have two of the same coffee shop, with presumably, the same menu, one open on Shabbat and one closed.  Will the clientele change? Will the kosher restaurant called The Coffee Shop have more competition?  One can occasionally catch kippa-wearers in the “traf” Aroma on Emek.  We will have to wait and see if they migrate over to Aroma Hakasher when it opens.  This new Aroma is a symbol of two things…the changing population of Jerusalem, religious Jews replacing all else; and Americanization of Jerusalem: will the Aroma HaKasher have English menus?  I’ll wager a bet or two on yes. 

When the messiah comes in addition to being vegetarian, maybe we will all agree on one version of a chain restaurant per street.  Then again, maybe not.