The men begin arriving at the doors of the Carmei Ha’ir restaurant in Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda neighborhood just before noon. As the open restaurant gets ready for business, they make their way inside to the tables already set up with pitchers of water and wicker baskets of fresh pita bread. Volunteer waiters bring plates of food to the patrons.
Today the menu includes creamy onion soup flecked with mushrooms, beet salad, pasta, a beef-filled sambusa dumpling and a rice dumpling stuffed with humus.
Behind the counter other workers, who are themselves doing public service work in lieu of serving time in prison, have been cooking since 8 a.m. preparing the daily lunch.
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