Coworking Spaces With a Jewish Bent

In a recent post from Tablet, Flora Tsapovsky wrote:

They still have shared conference rooms, free Wi-Fi, and after-work parties. But they’ve also got kosher kitchens, sukkahs, and a commitment to Jewish values.

This month, coworking giant WeWork opened its first Jerusalem location. As part of its advance promotion, WeWork opened a temporary coworking space in a sukkah downtown a few weeks before the opening, combining a celebration of Sukkot traditions rooted in ancient times with very modern trappings, from free Wi-Fi to evening parties with DJs and bartenders. As offbeat as this might sound, it could serve as a metaphor for a direction that coworking spaces and Jewish communities are taking—toward each other.

This past April, Bnei Brak, another Israeli city, welcomed the opening of Ampersand, the first coworking space in the country catering to ultra-Orthodox Jews. WeWork masterminds consulted on the project, an initiative of KamaTech—an Israeli nonprofit organization focused on integrating Israel’s ultra-Orthodox population into the tech fields—and with support from tech giant Cisco. The space looks like any other modern coworking hub, except it is divided into male and female areas and offers a strictly kosher kitchen.

For the full article, please click here.