At rooftop café, opportunities for autistic young adults

A five-course vegetarian dinner prepared and served on the rooftop of Jerusalem’s Clal Center celebrated the first six months of Agalala, a social coffee-cart cafe that employs young adults on the autism spectrum. The project’s name is a playful twist on the Hebrew word agalah (cart), reflecting both the coffee cart itself and its warm, community-oriented spirit.

The Agal-Gala event on a cool Jerusalem evening brought supporters, partners and community members to Muslala’s rooftop center on Jaffa Road for food, music, personal stories and a presentation of the project’s approach to inclusive employment.

The Agalala team prepared a kosher tasting menu that included gazpacho, fresh-corn polenta, watermelon salad with fakous cucumber, sumac, honey, pistachios and jibneh cheese, and stuffed onion served on tzatziki.

Matan Israeli, co-founder and CEO of Muslala, said the coffee cart had completed a vision that the Jerusalem-based urban art and sustainability collective had spent more than a decade developing.

Muslala has spent 12 years transforming the roof of the Clal Center into a cultural, ecological and community space — “piece by piece, we have assembled a puzzle,” he said.

The cafe was “the missing piece of the puzzle,” enabling visitors to experience the rooftop through healthy food, warm hospitality and personal encounters.

Muslala CEO/Director Moran Bash Danon said the coffee cart brings together two groups with distinct but complementary missions.

Muslala focuses on art, culture and sustainability, while Gal College specializes in vocational training and employment resilience for people facing barriers to entering the workforce.

Drawing on American sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s concept of the “third place,” Bash Danon described the rooftop as a space that is neither home nor work, but a welcoming setting in which people meet and communities form.

“A third place can be a garden, a hair salon, a public library, a cafe or a rooftop,” she said. “For me, Muslala’s rooftop is first and foremost such a place. It is a meeting place — open, inclusive, diverse, cultural, sustainable and social.”

The rooftop sits in the center of an increasingly dense urban environment where opportunities for spontaneous human interaction are becoming scarcer, she said.

Ruti Tal, vice president for professional affairs at Gal College, said the 45-year-old organization helps people acquire skills, enter the workforce, remain employed and develop professionally. It operates programs at 12 locations across Israel and began working in Jerusalem about three years ago.

Tal said its activities in the capital began after a mother representing parents of young adults on the autism spectrum asked the college to create a program for participants completing national service who had no clear path into employment.

The organization initially struggled to find an affordable location in the capital. A referral eventually led Tal to Israeli and Muslala.

“I immediately knew this was what I wanted for us: a connection to a community,” she said. “I sensed that there was something here much greater than simply a place to house our program.”

Muslala brought the concept and community setting, while Gal College provided the professional experience required to train and support the workers.

“This is not another machine in another sheltered workshop,” Tal said. “It is something larger — creative, innovative and rooted in the community.”

She said the project reflects a broader understanding of employment inclusion that emphasizes strengths and what Gal College calls “ExtrAbility,” rather than defining people according to disability.

“It is this combination of ecology, art, society and extra abilities,” she said. “Together, they generate light every day.”

Tal praised Segal’s “gentle and humane” leadership and said Agalala allows graduates of Gal College’s programs to practice workplace skills while developing relationships with customers and colleagues.

Arik Grebelsky, president of the Jerusalem Foundation, said Muslala represented a form of social entrepreneurship increasingly associated with the capital.

He said the rooftop could not be defined solely as an environmental, cultural, social or coexistence initiative.

“That is precisely its beauty and magic,” he said.

He contrasted the city’s cultural and social initiatives with the perception among some overseas visitors that Jerusalem offers little beyond its religious and political institutions.

“Come with me for one day and see what a special city Jerusalem is,” he said.

Grebelsky cited Muslala and other independent cultural venues in the city center as evidence that Jerusalem is becoming a leading center for social entrepreneurship and cooperation between communities.

For Israeli, the evening demonstrated the potential of the project, which he hoped would be expanded and replicated in other locations.

“The ability to host people here and allow them to experience this place through the pleasure of meeting and eating together is a great privilege,” he concluded.