On a Thursday afternoon, on a trip to a shared workspace in Jerusalem above its central bus station, I heard something I’ve never experienced before at any WeWork: children laughing. Alongside some Yiddish-speaking employees with twisted sidelocks talking about their Sabbath plans, hipster start-up founders, and a mélange of Israeli entrepreneurs conversing in French, I was surprised to find that I had rented an office with a kids’ movie theater and a playroom. I had never seen anything like it in any office in Washington, D.C., where I usually work.
Parents wrapping up their week — the Israeli weekend runs from Friday to Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath — had brought their kids along to the office to play. I texted my wife that the adults were outnumbered by a good factor by rambunctious children. The prophet Zechariah once envisioned a Jerusalem that “shall be crowded with boys and girls playing in the squares.” I doubt he imagined they would also show up to co-working spaces.
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