Beyond the Brew: A Jerusalem Space for Community, Culture, and Expression

On a street named Heleni ha-Malka in West Jerusalem, where the boundary of Arab Jerusalem once ran through the Musrara and al-Moskobiyya neighborhoods along Jaffa Road, sits Café Bastet. The name “Bastet” is in reference to the ancient Egyptian goddess of protection, often depicted as a lioness or domestic cat that symbolizes guardianship and strength.

Painted purple and blue, Café Bastet is a tiny place on a busy street. The noise rarely fades and the parking is hard to find, yet in this space, boundaries dissolve into something deeply personal. The coffeehouse was launched in 2023, just two months before October 7, 2023 and all the horrific realities that followed. It underwent several challenges and was forced to close for lengthy weeks, yet not only is it still standing after two years, but it’s also become far more than a café.

For many Palestinians of Jerusalem, Bastet is a refuge, a gathering place, and a kind of chosen family. Like private homes whose addresses we share only with those closest to us, this circle of trust holds that same quiet intimacy. Though it is a public space, it carries the warmth and safety of a private one—a place where laughter, music, and trust can be found behind closed doors.

The owner, Diala Hanoun, was 27 when she realized her dream of opening a coffeehouse. She herself is still surprised—not only that she managed to open a café of her own and sustain it, but that she did so in this particular location, at the heart of West Jerusalem’s city center. As a Palestinian Jerusalemite Arabic-speaking young woman, this has been no easy endeavor. Still, to have seen it transform into a home that hosts young artists and creatives is significant.

This story is less about a café, and more about a shared community.

A passerby will most likely not grasp the significance of having this young woman run the place with the support of loyal friends and family. Among other things, the Hebrew-dominated street was a major deterrent for Diala, who is neither familiar nor comfortable with the language, let alone in dealing with the Israeli-issued papers that are required to run a business at this side of the city.

But thankfully, Diala’s friends and acquaintances helped with legal, financial, and technical issues. She also has a team of volunteers decorating the area, arranging and watering potted plants, helping organize events, and even designing and advertising the space.

“This place is definitely more than a coffeehouse—it’s an art and community space. Frankly, it is our shelter,” says Mohanad Darwish,1 an integral member of the team. The clientele is mostly in their 20s, with many art students studying nearby. “We are a large family; we’re not like-minded. On the contrary, you’ll find great differences, but we have one thing in common: We all want to see our city alive.”

Mohanad stresses that none of the events held at the café are funded. “It’s miraculous how much we’ve done with zero budget. We’re all happy to artistically and positively experiment with the space. We care about one another, and we accept all people who are open to us,” he explains.

Diala is hardworking; Mohanad says that her perseverance and work ethic cultivated a safe space for new connections that wouldn’t have happened otherwise: “Arab Palestinian society is very isolated. The silence is suffocating,” he explains, “and sharing a collective journey is significant.”

Behind the aroma of the coffee and the calm confidence of the person making it, there are tapestries of sorrow rarely re-shared. It is beyond inspiring to imagine that Diala, full of power and agency, underwent an entirely different reality on another street in East Jerusalem 16 years earlier.

In 2009, journalists, reporters, lawyers, activists, and various local (Palestinian and Israeli) communities witnessed the forcible expulsion of the Hanoun family from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood (see Forcible Expulsions).2 The family, including Diala, had lived in their home since 1956 (during the Jordan period) and received legitimate papers in 1964. Three years after, however, a Sephardic settler group claimed the rights to a sacred Jewish tomb located in the center of the neighborhood, and thus started a long running case in Israeli courts, which put the family into continuous legal battles.3

Diala was hardly six years old when her family received an expulsion order in April 2002, 19 days after which 43 individuals (including Diala and her family) were removed from the area, and Israeli settlers took over the properties.4 Knowing that they had the legal rights to remain in their home, the family went to court. They ascertained their right to live in their home consistently as of 2006, yet another decision came in 2008 to vacate yet again, and Maher Hanoun, Diala’s father, was imprisoned for three months for not complying. The court then set another deadline for the family’s forcible expulsion in the summer of 2009, leading not only to arrest but also to fines for each day they remained in the house.5

The case got a lot of attention, with various high-level supporters and human rights associations standing in solidarity. Refusing to concede to what they saw as an unjust case, the family slept on mattresses on the street outside their home, under an olive tree.6

Eventually, the Hanoun, alongside the Ghawi, family, totaling 53 people (including 19 children), were physically thrown out of their homes.

“It was over in minutes,”7 a report from the Guardian mentions, explaining that the heavily armed police broke down the metal doors of the houses and dragged the families onto the streets. This was a little after 5:00 a.m. on August 2, 2009.

Other sources described how the police shattered the front windows by throwing bricks before entering the Hanoun house. The children sat outside, seeing most of their belongings destroyed and gone.8 “The police violently separated the family from the international and Israeli solidarity activists who were staying in the home . . . They forcefully removed Maher Hanoun, his wife Nadia, and their three children.”9

At the time, the children were Rami, 21, Jana, 17, and Diala, 12.10

“I don’t use the term ‘evicted,’”11 says Diala. “I would say we were tossed out; we were ejected and removed.”

Meanwhile, they were “watching [religious Israeli] settlers walk in and out of their front doors.”12

For sisters Diala and Jana, who physically sat on the road of Sheikh Jarrah as children scared of losing their home and saw their father being arrested and detained for three months, and then were “uprooted and thrown out,” as she explains it, the experience was not easy. Since the expulsion, the family has had to pay high rents in places such as Beit Hanina and Shu‘fat, but nevertheless, always, in Jerusalem.

Despite the outcome, however, what seems to stand out for Diala is the strength derived from togetherness. This would shape her life.

“I will never in my life forget that feeling,” she says of the pure compassion and solidarity she witnessed throughout her childhood, not only from close people but also from absolute strangers. “Seeing the coming together of societies, communities, gatherings; this is what I was raised into.”

She recalls the long months spent inside the tent of Um Kamel (Fawzieh) al-Kurd, who in 2008 was handcuffed and dragged out of her house while her husband died of a heart attack during an expulsion.13 “That was the first forcible expulsion I witnessed as a kid,” says Diala, who was short of 13 years old at the time. Countless supporters sat for long months to resist the eradication of the Sheikh Jarrah families. “The entire neighborhood, along with the masses of people and total strangers, stood with us,” recalls Diala—her eyes brightening up as she brings examples of the Nubani family who allowed for the tent to be set up in their private parking lot with no charge or complaints, and the numerous people (from all creeds and nationalities, including consuls and ambassadors) offering and sharing meals together. Diala remembers the solidarity of the people and knowing that in times of struggle, having shared communities makes all the difference.

In 2021, when the cause #SaveSheikhJarrah gained international attention, largely due to online pressure exerted by the outspoken and assertive twins Muhammad and Muna al-Kurd, the overall experience brought flashbacks for Diala: “2021 was the greatest trigger for me,” she admits. “I went to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood a few times that year, but I couldn’t deal with it.”

In that year, she decided to go to Jordan.

What happened next surprised her. The six months she spent outside of Jerusalem helped her grow tremendously. She met people who were enamored by the fact that she was a Jerusalemite with a noble cause. The time away from the city made her see her own value and understand her crucial role—as a woman, a feminist, and community member. It gave her nafas—she uses the Arabic word that literally means “breath,” but technically means “life, spirit, and vitality.”

With the nafas that she got from her time away, Diala, the once 12-year-old girl sleeping on the street, fearful for her detained father, losing her home, and dealing with social pressure, managed to bring to life what she learned best from her childhood: a space to foster community-building.

One of the first events Café Bastet hosted was a food pop-up for “Bajjali & Ko” in support of its founder Natalie Bajjali, who opened the only Korean restaurant in Jerusalem’s Old City in July 2023, but had to close it in January 2024 due to political turmoil killing the business. That pop-up set the tone for Bastet’s future events: community-driven, creativity-focused, and empowering for women and youth—all with no funding.

Other events followed: draft developments for art students (the insights of which reaped results, such as for Jerusalem- and Jaffa-based Odai Tamimi’s prominent production, Permanent Resident). There were food and cooking pop-ups (like women-owned pastry businesses such as Shughol Beit); thrift pop-ups for clothes, books, and items; fashion shows such as Raseef fashion; art exhibitions; music performances, including by Aida Qunbar, Sezar Hanna, and Khaled Baransi; film screenings; and various events and parties. Throughout the events, several people volunteered their time and effort to ensure their successful delivery, such as Nimer Shalodi, who created a 3D scan of the place to determine how to display posters even before they are printed.

“You wouldn’t believe the deep insights that came out of these events,” says Diala. “People were in tears.”

At the end of October 2025, Café Bastet hosted a four-day art marathon—a visual exhibition for art students. Among the displays was a video installation by Jaber Karakra, a 23-year-old from Arraba, Upper Galilee, titled “Mom, Clean Me!” Had it not been for the café’s space, Jaber might not have been ready or able to express what he describes as a “reverse journey to the first moment of birth.”14 In his synopsis, he writes: “I ask her [my mom] to wash me from within, not only with water but from that weight that time has left on me . . . In that moment I think of death, of what it means to be a man, and how everything has changed between the beginning and what I have become now.”15

Natalie Doulah, 22, a Jerusalemite resident of Beit Safafa and a fourth-year student of fine arts at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, painted on the café’s glass windows, providing her first experience in working with acrylic on glass. Natalie says that she used to pass by the place all the time, but never quite imagined she’d become the person drawing art outside its windows.

“It was overwhelming to consider what different types of people will think of it, but ultimately, having these four portraits out in public—each of which means a lot to me—creates presence. This was a very sensitive project for me: It may look simple, but it stirred deep emotions. This is an imprint that brings up such a great feeling.”16

“It’s not easy to be a Jerusalemite,” Natalie shares, but “Jerusalem taught me not to be afraid; to express through art—preferably with no words—and most importantly with no fear.” She is not blind to the fact that Café Bastet, as well as her fine arts academy, Bezalel, are in a heavily surveilled and sensitive area, right next to the Russian Compound and al-Moskobiyya detention center. To be creating art while watching numerous Palestinians get handcuffed, detained, and arrested in this space is surely overwhelming. There were times when she’d completely stop, she shares, unable to touch her brush or use colors after being exposed to the horrid realities of military and political violence. Unable to formulate her response, she chose instead to speak in silence through art. “It’s important in life to connect with those who understand,” Natalie says. She describes this space as a great source of support; a home and a second family.

At Café Bastet, it is difficult to tell the barista from the client; like family members, the newly-made friends walk around the space freely, sometimes helping themselves to what they need—demonstrating that they belong.

“There is trust,” Diala stresses. “I don’t see this as just selling coffee, and I don’t see the people here as clients . . . The hell with the money,” she apologizes for her colloquial way of speaking, “but this to me is far more important.”

By “this,” Diala is speaking about community.

“Growing up in Jerusalem, I knew what it meant to navigate a city that did not make space for us,”17 wrote Diala in a powerful statement in 2025 where she stressed that “talent, when given a space, cannot be ignored.” She added: