Al-Saaleek Cafe (Al-Mukhtar Cafe)
The Tramp cafe was named after a group of intellectual men who called themselves the Tramp party, built by the Jerusalem writer and educator Khalil qastandi Al-Sakakini, one of the pioneers of modern education in the Arab world in 1908, and is located at the gate of Hebron, which is an old house whose roof is based on what is between the arch and the knot a little low in some of its corners, and some others imagined, the building sticks to the Great Wall at the gate of Hebron in ancient Jerusalem and its external appearance is in harmony with what the neighboring and surrounding buildings look like, in it the antiquity of the past and the elegance of the present, which highlights what it looks like Of the contemporary architectural styles, the pond, as well as the water fountain that used to stand in the middle of the cafe's back garden, still exists to this day, but there are no people sitting flying around it, as the sakkini and his paralysed were doing, and of the same kind, and if there are some remnants of the garden trees that used to shade the shadrouan, they are still alive and and the house birds, which Anastas Ananias and other little ones spent some time caressing and also watching, the cafe was known as the chosen cafe, which is The House of Palestinian intellectuals during the Turkish and British eras, the cafe had various names such as: Historical references say that the external fame that the cafe enjoyed made it an address for correspondence between Arab writers and intellectuals with their Palestinian counterparts, especially by pilgrims who were bringing with them some newspapers, magazines, cultural and literary books, as well as literary news and literature in the cities from which they came, and it became famous in Jerusalem and other Palestinian cities and its fame reached Isa Al-Taba was an ambassador to the people of Jordan, Haifa,Jaffa, Acre, Ramle, Lydda and Nazareth, who, upon their arrival in Jerusalem, were hoping They ask the Chosen One, guided by their needs and goals.
Those who wanted to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem from Beirut, Aleppo, Damascus or Karak, went to the Chosen One as soon as he arrived in Jerusalem to secure his residence, visits to the holy places and entry to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the Holy Saturday holidays, as part of the organized visit processions led by the Chosen One Abu Michel.
The tramps cafe was the addition where the literary Khalil Sakakini received his guests. If a guest came to him, he would not take him home, but "drag" him to a certain place in the cafe where the guest would sit with the girl, so he would get to know those he did not know and get to know him. This was true not only of the Palestinian guests of Sakakini, but also of the Arabs. He mentioned that he had hosted a large number of them there, including: Ahmed Zaki Pasha, Khalil Matran, Maarouf Al-rusafi and others, then Khalil Sakakini was cut off from the cafe because of his travel to Cairo, as well as the transfer of most newspapers and magazines to Jaffa and Haifa, which led to the interruption of the cafe patrons who were working in those newspapers, another reason was the involvement of the Jerusalem intellectual circles in engaging in national political parties or in municipal politics in the city, so the cafe was neglected, and this cafe remains in its former state until now.