A Room of Their Own

Abstract

The first chapter explores how Jews integrated into European society while at the same time used leisure and consumer places to maintain senses of group cohesion and collective identity. In aiming to preserve but also in effect to recreate a sense of collectivity, an increasing number of Jewish individuals turned to new social spaces to make and nurture friendships and solidify networks and solidarity. The chapter is thus about boundaries: the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews and the boundaries between different Jewish groups as they were expressed in social spaces. In particular, the chapter explores how writers, intellectuals, artists, immigrants, and the working classes used cafés to create friendship and fraternity, and how they used hotels and restaurants for new forms of conviviality and community building.