The problem with Jewish education back then, as now (though it’s better), was this: Jewish educators are a product of their own Jewish education. In that Jewish education, they learn about Jews from Poland, Russia, and Germany. They learn little or nothing, however, about Jews from Egypt, Brazil, or Afghanistan. So how can they turn around and teach about any of those Jewish community histories, religious traditions, intelligentsia, culture, etc?

Which all goes to say, my education in Jewish multiculturalism was from the live classroom of hanging out with all the non-Ashkenazi Jewish separatists – the ones who dared to identify with their heritage and hang on to their culture, to varying degrees. As a child, I thought old people were totally awesome. I loved hearing their stories. Old people were so much more interesting than kids, because old people could teach me songs and tell me about the life experience of Jews from every corner of the globe.

Except Ethiopia. I didn’t have anyone to ask about Ethiopia.

Here’s the thing: We have to take responsibility for what we don’t know – meaning, we have to go out and find the way to know about it, whatever it takes. In my case, that effort came in the form of accosting an unsuspecting Ethiopian-Israeli wearing a kippah, in the stairwell of Hebrew University, back in the mid-1990s. I figured, he has a kippah, so he’s religious; therefore, he’ll know where I can go to an Ethiopian synagogue. He did. He also thought I was a nut job, but he quickly got over that, once he saw my earnest quest to learn.

I have so many stories about that journey. But one story at a time. I’m making the effort to put aside time each day to record the million stories from my journeys through life, and to organize my articles in one place. To keep that commitment, I have to make sure I make each installment small and therefore manageable. But stay tuned…

BEERSHEBA, Israel, Apr. 29 (JTA) –

Like many Israelis, David Machlev was glued to his television set throughout the American-led war against Iraq.

But Machlev, a philosophy lecturer at Alma College in Tel Aviv who opposed the war, had different reasons than most for watching.

“I was very curious to see the Meir Tweg synagogue,” he recalls. “I think my parents were married there.”

Machlev’s parents came to Israel as part of the mass exodus of Iraqi Jews in the years following the 1948 founding of the State of Israel

The experience of Nuriel Zilha, an ombudsman for the Israeli government, was fairly typical: He was forced to leave his fortune behind, arriving in Israel with just the clothes on his body.

The Iraqi Jews arrived to Israel “with nearly nothing,” since Iraq confiscated and nationalized all their personal, communal and religious property, explains Mordechai Ben-Porat, who was instrumental in underground efforts to help the community emigrate.

Ben-Porat later founded the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Museum in Or Yehuda, a Tel Aviv suburb with one of the two largest concentrations of Iraqi Jews in Israel.

“We couldn’t get back to Iraq and take photographs, so we collected all the memories, all the songs here in Israel, and we started the museum,” he says.

In addition to replicas of Jewish objects from Iraq, the museum boasts a collection of original Jewish artifacts that somehow made it out of the country. It also has a life-size exhibit of a typical street scene in Baghdad’s Jewish ghetto.

The estimated 250,000 Israelis of Iraqi origin also have set up schools, synagogues, foundations, and restaurants throughout the country to support the community and pass on the rich Babylonian Jewish heritage.

On Jabotinsky Street in Ramat Gan, another Tel Aviv suburb with a heavy concentration of Iraqi Jews, you can buy glida mastik, an ice cream delicacy created by a Jewish entrepreneur in Baghdad decades ago. The recipe remains a family secret, passed down from generation to generation.

The third largest Jewish community in Israel, Iraqi Jews have been actively involved at all levels of Israeli society. Shortly after the community’s mass immigration, 17 percent of all Israeli doctors and 11 percent of all teachers were from Iraq.

Since that time, 30 Iraqi Jews have served in the Knesset — in fact, fully 10 percent of the legislators in the last Knesset alone had some Iraqi origin.

All of Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbis have come from families with Iraqi origins, including Ovadia Yosef and Mordechai Eliyahu.

Ten Supreme Court justices, and about 40 judges on other courts, have been of Iraqi descent.

Government leaders of Iraqi descent include Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who has served as defense minister and Labor Party chairman; Dalia Itzik, who has served as minister of trade; and Moshe Levy, the Israel Defense Force chief of staff from 1983-1987.

Amira Hess and Sami Michael, nationally renowned writers; Yair Dalal, an internationally known oud player; and Yossi Madmoni and David Ofek, movie producers, all are of Iraqi origin.

Iraqis in Israel also have helped found and lead movements for social change: They created the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, which fights for compensation for Jewish refugees from the Muslim world; and have been among the founders and leaders of Hakeshet Hademokratit Hamizrahi, a high-profile activist organization for Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin, where members joke about the group’s “Iraqi mafia.”

Hakeshet is one of the organizations addressing Iraqi Jews’ concern that their quick and successful integration often came at the price of their distinctive heritage.

“Iraqi Jews were in a trap,” explains Shoshana Gabay, the daughter of Iraqi Jews and one of Hakeshet’s founders and directors. “They had to disconnect from their homeland in order to be accepted in this country.”

Over the decades, Iraqi Israelis sometimes faced hostility and ridicule because of their ethnic background.

“Our conflict here is rooted in the pressure to bleach from ourselves all remains of our Arabic inclinations,” Gabay says. “Iraqi Jews were very much a part of Iraqi society. We were part of the foundation of the country. When we left and came here, there was a huge crisis.”

Such feelings of cultural trauma seem to have resurfaced for the older generation of Iraqi Israelis during the two Persian Gulf Wars.

Israelis of all ethnicities may have felt they were watching a movie rerun during the recent war, but many Iraqi Jews could not get over the renewed shock of seeing their birthplace bombed.

Their reactions to the American attack were as mixed.

Some were deeply concerned about the neighbors they had left behind. Others saw the attack as punishment for those who had persecuted Jews in Iraq.

Still others felt the war was a tragedy, but that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was best for the Iraqi people in the long run.

Regardless of whether they were for or against the war, Jews of Iraqi descent seem excited about the sudden possibility that they may be able to visit Iraq in the near future.

Ben-Porat estimates that tens of thousands of Iraqi-Israelis will visit the country, and he believes the community will play an important role in building bridges between Israel and a new Iraq.

Accountant Salman Khalastchi is confident his community will be on the forefront of transforming the Iraqi-Israeli relationship.

“When peace will come,” he says, “we can go and pray in our holy places that are left in Iraq. From the other side, our brothers and sisters from Iraq can come to Israel and pray in the holy places of Muslims and Christians, under the shadow of peace. God will hear and answer our prayer, insh’alla.”

For now, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Mossad security agency are trying to bring the remaining 35 or Jews in Iraq to Israel.

Tikva Ziv, professor of Hebrew at the Technological College of Beersheba and a sabra of Iraqi descent, thinks that bringing the remaining Jews to Israel will be a positive step.

“This is the Jewish state. They don’t have to hide here, to be afraid. Here they can be free with the rest of us,” she says.

But the Jews left in Iraq reportedly are resisting attempts to bring them to Israel, arguing that they want to stay in the land of their ancestry and birth.

“I just hope that Israel won’t decide for those Jews,” Gabay says. “In 1950-1951, we did not have the choice to decide. I hope Israel will not ’save’ them, because maybe they don’t want to be saved. Maybe they want to stay in their own country.”

JERUSALEM, May. 27 (JTA) –

“Every day I go to the Ministry of the Interior,” says Binkito Baquaia, grasping pictures of her family.

“I have been separated from my mother, father, brother and sisters for six years. I keep trying to find out what is happening with them, when Israel will bring them,” she continues. “The Ministry of the Interior staff repeatedly brush me off. They refuse to answer me.

“My mother and father are sick, but I can’t help them,” she says, her voice filled with pain. “I don’t have money and I have two children. I send whatever I can, but it is not enough.”

Baquaia is among thousands of Ethiopian immigrants demonstrating against the Interior Ministry this week, demanding that the immigration of the Falash Mura — the majority of whose ancestors converted to Christianity under social and economic pressure — be expedited.

Some 2,000 protesters marched through Jerusalem on Sunday, congregating in front of the Interior Ministry for a six- hour demonstration.

The demonstrators also threatened a hunger strike if their demands are not met.

“We are demanding the implementation of the government’s Feb. 16 decision” to expedite the immigration of the Falash Mura, said Avraham Neguise, director of South Wing to Zion: The Association for the Ingathering and Absorption of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, which is organizing the weeklong protest.

The activists also are calling on Diaspora Jews to provide assistance for the Falash Mura waiting to immigrate.

When Israel began carrying out large-scale immigration operations of Ethiopian Jews in the early 1990s, many Falash Mura attempted to join the wave, claiming they were Jewish by ancestry.

The number of Falash Mura continued to grow, leading the Israeli government to believe they were not Jews but just wanted to leave famine-plagued Ethiopia.

Ethiopian Jewish activists have been lobbying for the Falash Mura, maintaining that many of them were forced to convert or never really abandoned their Jewish faith, and that now they are practicing Judaism.

In 1998, after bringing a group of 4,000 Falash Mura, most of whom had relatives in Israel, the government changed its policy, reviewing each Ethiopian immigration request on an individual basis. In 1999, government surveyors registered 26,000 people in camps run by international activists in Addis Ababa and Gondar. A few thousand have immigrated every year since then, but some have been waiting for up to 10 years to join family members in Israel.

The Feb. 16 decision ordered the government to immediately examine the eligibility of an estimated 18,000 waiting to immigrate and bring anyone descended from an Ethiopian Jew on the mother’s side.

But Neguise claimed that Interior Minister Avraham Poraz last week reversed the Feb. 16 decision, arguing that Israel does not have enough money to bring the Falash Mura.

The “economic difficulties of the state cannot be ignored,” Poraz told the Knesset committee on May 19, according to the Post. “Every time the camps are emptied they become refilled. This is a never-ending story.”

In addition, he noted, those brought to Israel might later try to bring over additional relatives still in Ethiopia.

In the week since Poraz spoke, Neguise said, 26 Falash Mura youth died in Addis Ababa and Gondar of sickness and hunger.

“We never said that we are going to bring them immediately,” said the ministry spokesman, Tipi Rabinovitch. “The decision still stands that Israel is interested in bringing the Falash Mura, and that we need to establish a board, to check whether it’s economically feasible to bring them.”

Joseph Feit, past president of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry, questions that approach. Never before has Israel turned its back on immigrants because of financial concerns, Feit says.

“It was in much worse economic shape in the 1950s, but it brought in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees,” he said.

Demonstrators argued that money is an excuse for postponing the resolution of a decade-long humanitarian crisis.

Mikoyet Zagiyeh, an Israeli soldier whose father is stuck in Ethiopia, noted that Israel sends government representatives to actively scout out immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

“I serve with Russians who have no connection to Judaism whatsoever,” he said, “but they were brought to Israel and they have all these rights.”

Asked if the ministry considers economic factors when deciding to bring immigrants from Russia or Argentina, Rabinovitch hedged.

“Money is always somewhere in the picture,” he said.

“We’re talking about over 10 million shekels” — almost $2.5 million– “for every 10,000 immigrant Falash Mura,” said Arik Puder, spokesman for the Immigration and Absorption Ministry.

“Falash Mura immigrants come from another kind of culture, another kind of country and society,” he said. “We need to give a lot of special programs in order to absorb them into Israeli society. They are much further away from the standards of living here than are Russian immigrants.”

Demonstrators said they believe the current crisis is rooted in a much deeper problem — how Israelis view and treat Ethiopians.

“They look at us with closed eyes,” said Alamu Mondevro, who is frustrated by the assumption that the cultural, spiritual and intellectual exchange among Ethiopian immigrants and veteran Israelis is a one-way street.

“We want to teach Israelis, but they don’t even want to approach us, to be around us,” he said.

Israeli ignorance of Ethiopian Jewish life has contributed to numerous misunderstandings regarding the Falash Mura, said Adam Baruch, Ethiopian community organizer for HILA, the Israel Association for Equality in Education.

“Christian missionary activities in Ethiopia were very, very strong,” he said. “They knew how to pick on weak people. They gave money to those in need, then brainwashed them. Missionary activities were a form of war against all the Ethiopian Jews.”

During times of famine and drought, Neguise said, Jews had to leave their villages in search of better land. Often they would settle in areas with an aggressive Christian population.

“If they didn’t renounce Judaism they could not settle in that area,” a fate often tantamount to death, he said.

Demonstrators say the Falash Mura took on Christian identities but secretly remained Jews, marrying only their own kind. In this way, Neguise said, they can be compared to the conversos of Spain.

Asked about some of the Falash Mura who continue to practice Christianity even after coming to Israel, Baruch said, “Ethiopians are feeling very alienated. They feel rejected from Israeli society.”

There is a strong Christian missionary movement in Israel that sees Ethiopians as easy prey, he said.

Still, Baruch agrees that the current group is not the last.

“Other Jews will come. Nobody here can know how many Jews are in Ethiopia, how many Falash Mura,” he said.

None of the demonstrators thinks that’s enough reason for Israel to turn its back on the Falash Mura. Feit brandished a copy of a letter sent last Friday from Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

After 18 months of exhaustive research — including a personal trip to Ethiopia — Amar had concluded that the Falash Mura are “100 percent Jews, without a doubt” and should “immediately be brought to Israel” so as “to rescue them from the jaws of death,” the letter reads.

“There is no reason at this point, simply no reason” that the Falash Mura shouldn’t be brought to Israel immediately, says Irwin Cotler, a Canadian legislator who for 25 years has been an activist for Ethiopian Jewish rights.

Many demonstrators say the real reason for the delay is racism — though Poraz has issued a statement calling such allegations “completely unfounded.”

“I would not wish to have such inferences” as racism “be drawn,” Cotler says, “but the government will have only itself to blame. “After so many years, people have begun to say to themselves, ‘Well, what possible reason can there be for us not being brought?’ ”

Meanwhile, the activists are demanding that Diaspora Jewry, through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, provide humanitarian aid and education for those in the camps.

In a letter to the JDC and other American Jewish leaders — a letter that made its way to the press but which the JDC said it hasn’t received — Neguise wrote, “In contrast to its conduct in the” former Soviet Union, “Argentina and other countries, the Joint almost completely ignores thousands of our brethren awaiting aliyah in Ethiopia. Other than partial medical assistance, it does not assist at all in education, providing financial aid or teaching the heritage of the Jewish people.”

He demanded that the JDC “desist from this discrimination and begin to provide aid on the same basis as it provides assistance to all other Jewish communities in distress.”

JDC’s executive vice president, Steven Schwager, flatly rejected the charge.

While its role is to nourish populations that aim to stay put, the JDC has a program in Ethiopia, where the Falash Mura hope to make aliyah, Schwager said.

“We have a medical care program that provides medical care to all the population,” with special emphasis on malnourished children and the elderly.

He said there was no need for the JDC to provide education because schooling and religious training is run by the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry.

Asked whether the JDC and the American Jewish community support Falash Mura aliyah, Schwager deferred to Israel.

“When the Israeli government recognizes them as Jews, then the community will support them,” Schwager said.

“The decision that was made said the policy of the government will be to recognize matrilineal descent,” he said. “Now the Israelis have to implement the policy.”

Once individuals are approved on a case-by-case basis, JDC officials said, they’ll get assistance from the JDC in the way of money, food and clothing until it’s time for them to depart.

BEERSHEBA, Israel, Jun. 15 (JTA) –

“Any Moroccans from the ‘hood here tonight?” Ilan Babylon belts into the microphone, strutting onstage.

Standing squarely in front of an Israeli flag hanging from his disk jockey equipment, he shouts, “Raise your hands and make some noise, Moroccans!”

Close to half the crowd hollers enthusiastically, and a sea of hands shoots skyward.

Welcome to hip-hop, Beersheba style.

“We brought a new rhythm and style of music to Israel,” says Chemi, a former rapper for the now-defunct band Shabak Sameh, the first Israeli group to perform and record hip-hop. “It took us 10 years, and only now is it entering the mainstream.”

Today there are Israeli hip-hop artists from all sectors of Israeli society — Ethiopian, Arab, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi, or Eastern — with each band sharing its own lyrical message and blending its own signature musical style.

“The messages of hip-hop are very individual,” Chemi says.

Some believe hip-hop has gone bad in the Jewish state.

“Because hip-hop comes from the States, it got a bit lost in Israel,” says Sivan, who was one of 250 people at a Remedy/Killah Priest show in Beersheba three weeks ago.

Israeli hip-hop artists, she says, “are trying to do black music, and they lost a bit of the message.”

Chemi disagrees.

“Hip-hop is a tool,” he says. “Everyone uses it to say what they want. The subjects that we choose are things that we are close to. I don’t live in New York. I grew up in Yavneh. I live in Tel Aviv.”

The experiences of Israeli youth, he continues, are different than those of African Americans.

“My father is from Iraq, my mother is from Romania,” Chemi says. “It’s a totally different history and reality.”

Jeremy, an Ethiopian rapper, fuses traditional Ethiopian music and hip-hop.

“Ethiopian youth are attracted to hip-hop as the new expression of our identity,” he says, explaining that it is only natural to turn to African-American culture for cultural cues.

“We dreamed of Israel, reuniting with our Jewish brothers and sisters, but the dream was broken when we got here,” he says. “We got hit in the face. These were not the brothers and sisters we expected.”

Many Ethiopian hip-hop artists address feelings of betrayal and alienation in their songs.

“What happened in the 1960s in New York is happening now in Israel,” Jeremy says, citing racism and poverty.

Seeing “black people succeeding” in hip-hop, he says, “encourages and strengthens us, helps us deal with issues facing Ethiopians in Israel.”

An Israeli-born Canadian, Shi — both his name and an acronym for his rap handle, Supreme Hebrew Intellect — got into hip-hop through his Haitian friends in Montreal.

“I took what I felt they were talking about: a lot of positive messages, a lot of conscious hip-hop, political stuff. I took that and told my side,” he says.

He connected to hip-hop, he says, the same way he connected to Mizrahi music.

“It’s a symbol of the people; it’s the music of the street,” he says.

Now living again in Israel, Shi incorporates his Moroccan heritage into his music.

“I bring my Mizrahi identity through the beats, the sounds, the rhymes, the accent,” he says. “When I rhyme in French, you can hear a Moroccan accent. I even weave Moroccan words in and out.”

Tammer, an Israeli Arab rapper, also draws on Middle Eastern musical motifs.

As with hip-hop in America, however, ethnic identity is just one of the issues to croon about.

“The idea is to develop your own language,” says Sha’anan, a rapper from Hadag Nahash, a popular Israeli band with several hits.

His band sings about racism, violence against women and the economic situation in Israel.

“I write about being a woman in society,” says Shiri, Israel’s first female rapper.

“There were people who supported me,” she says of her entrance into hip-hop, “but there was a lot of discrimination because I was a woman in the hip-hop community. People tried to stop me.”

Sha’anan says male dominance of Israeli hip-hop may be an outgrowth of general male dominance in Israeli society.

“There are less women CEOs, less women in Knesset, and so on. It’s hard for women here,” he says.

American hip-hop artist Remedy, an Ashkenazi Jew, headlined at a Beersheba concert to perform his hit song “Never Again.”

He says the song, which has sold more than a million copies worldwide, was inspired by the plight of family members who were deported to Nazi concentration camps, never to be seen again.

Given the threat of terrorism, Israelis appreciated his decision to perform here, Remedy said.

“A lot of people came up to us, said how grateful they were that we came now,” he recalls.

“We came to spread hip-hop from New York to Israel,” he says. “It’s how the new generation communicates.”

Hip-hop, he notes approvingly, “is getting big in Israel now.”

Israeli rapper and producer Shulu, who has created several hip-hop compilation CDs, explains that hip-hop is popular in Israel because it provides an opportunity for people to say what they think.

“Israelis like to talk; Jews like to talk,” he says with a laugh. “It works.”

TEL AVIV, Jul. 29 (JTA) –

“I sacrificed my life for my parents,” says Salima Moshe, 72. “I gave everything to them. I didn’t think about myself.”

As a 20-year-old in 1951, Moshe watched her family and friends flee to Israel in an exodus that grew to include some 90 percent of the Iraqi Jewish community, or about 120,000 people.

Though she wanted to join them, she says she felt an obligation to stay in Basra.

“My mother and father were elderly,” she explains. “I needed to stay and take care of them.”

With all her sisters and brothers married, the duty of tending to her parents fell on Moshe’s shoulders.

Moshe is one of the six Iraqi Jews brought to Israel last Friday in Operation Ezra Mitzion, or Help From Zion.

On June 11, Jeff Kaye, an official of the Jewish Agency for Israel, went on a fact-finding mission to Iraq, checking on the status of the remaining 34 Jews. At the same time, Rachel Zelon, vice president for operations at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, was in Iraq to identify the remaining Jews and check on their condition and needs.

“All the Jews were distressed,” Kaye says, noting that the period since the U.S.-led war to unseat Saddam Hussein has been “a very unsettling time” in Iraq.

“Paradoxically,” he says, “though Saddam’s regime is no longer there, and coalition forces are, the situation is more volatile than ever before, because nobody is in charge.”

Kaye reported back to Yossi Shraga, director of Middle East immigration at the Jewish Agency, that the remaining Jews were mostly elderly and frail, lacked proper medical attention and lived in poverty.

“Most of the Jewish community had left already,” Kaye says, “so they didn’t have the support system that the rest of the population had, like children to look after them.”

Meanwhile, Shraga was acting to bring to Israel all the Jews who wanted to come. He contacted Shlomo Garafe, a Jewish Agency liaison from Israel with an American passport, who was born in Yemen and was fluent in Arabic. Garafe agreed to lead a mission to Iraq.

HIAS was prepared to co-sponsor the operation. The two organizations rented a Jordanian plane in Baghdad and made arrangements with the American army to fly out the six Jews who wanted to make aliyah.

“This small Jewish community has lived under a repressive regime for decades,” HIAS’ Zelon said in a statement. “They have lived in a society where the vast majority of the population despises Jews and Israel. Most have lived trying to hide their Jewish identities except with close friends, colleagues or neighbors. This is clearly a community at great risk given the increasing tensions within Iraq, and the increase in open anti-Semitism. We are delighted to have played a part in helping these initial six immigrate to Israel.”

They weren’t the only ones excited about the operation.

“According to what was reported to me from Iraq, American soldiers were very happy with this,” Shraga says. “Among them were Jewish soldiers who celebrated this happening. They helped Garafe and Zelon to get the Jews on board.”

Exactly two weeks after launching the operation, six Iraqi Jews landed safely in Israel on July 25.

“Emotions were very high,” Shraga recalls. “Here in Israel, family was waiting for them — family that had not seen them for 50 years.”

After the new immigrants appeared on television, 20 relatives called the station and showed up at the Avia Hotel within two hours for a family reunion.

One young woman, who is to get married in coming weeks, handed an invitation to her grandmother from Iraq, whom she had never seen before.

New immigrant Ezra Salah Levy, 82, spoke at the Knesset on Monday and then visited the Kotel, where he put a note in one of the cracks in the wall.

He recited the Shehecheyanu prayer thanking God for keeping him alive to have a wonderful new experience and then said Baruch m’chayeh ha’metim — Blessed be the One who breathes life into the dead.

Asked why he recited the latter prayer, Levy responded, “Because I am starting a new life in Israel, at 82 years old!”

But not all the immigrants are so at ease in their new surroundings.

“Baghdad is my city; I was born there,” says Salah Sasson Abdul Nebeh, 90, who now is living in a geriatric home in central Israel. “Of course I stayed there. It’s my country.”

As little as a week ago, Abdul Nebeh did not want to come to Israel.

“I am a bachelor. I had my own house. I was quite comfortable. I didn’t think of coming to Israel,” he says. But “a couple of Americans” — Garafe and Zelon — “persuaded me to come here.”

Garafe and Zelon, he recalls, “were so good to me, so nice, kind, generous, they were very, very good with me, so I was ashamed to say no, to insist,” Abdul Nebeh says. “I gave up.”

One Israeli politician — Labor legislator Colette Avital, head of the Knesset’s Immigration and Absorption Committee — accused the Jewish Agency of caring more about the publicity it would reap from the operation than about the Iraqi Jews’ wishes.

A Jewish Agency spokesperson said it was the duty of the agency and the State of Israel to rescue Jews in distress whenever possible.

For his part, Abdul Nebeh says he misses his friends in Baghdad.

“I left people there, and they cried about me going away. I don’t want to break the hearts of people, especially women. I hope I’ll be happy here after another one or two months.”

Though he doesn’t regret the decision to come to Israel, he says that at 90 he feels too old for such drastic changes in his life.

“I thought of ending it there,” he continues. “There is nothing much left.”

Down the hall from Abdul Nebeh, Moshe — who for years dreamed of making aliyah — has tears in her eyes when she recalls her departure from Iraq.

“It was very hard for me to separate from my friends there,” she says.

Though she had many friends during her last years in Basra, Moshe notes that life was not always comfortable as a Jew.

“We lived in a lot of fear,” she says, mentioning pogroms and hangings that took place through the 1970s. For extended periods, she says, Jews stayed confined to rooms in their homes and offices.

In the past few decades, however, she felt safe to roam around as she wished, Moshe says. She always wore her abaya — the full-body veil — to avoid harassment by men, but she did not feel hassled as a Jew — as long as she didn’t mention Israel, that is.

Of her sudden immigration to the country whose name she could not utter, Moshe says she is reminded of the biblical Moses.

“It’s so amazing to be here in Israel,” she says, “with my family and with the nation of Israel together. I am very, very happy that God granted me my wish to come.”

TEL AVIV, Aug. 8 (JTA) –

There are 2,500 new permanent residents of the State of Israel, but not one of them is new to the Jewish state.

Israel’s Black Hebrews, a group that traces its origins through Chicago and, they claim, all the way back to the biblical Jewish kingdoms, have been given a home in the Jewish state.

Though the Black Hebrews began immigrating to Israel from the United States in 1969, it was only last week that the community in southern Israel was granted permanent residency status.

It has been 34 years of bitter struggle, community members say.

“It seems that we are now at the doorstep of citizenship,” says Atarah Yafah Kitanah, spokeswoman for the Black Hebrew community of Dimona.

“We are happy,” she says of the development. “We now move forward.”

As permanent residents, Black Hebrews can serve in the Israeli army and establish government-recognized villages, the Interior Ministry says.

Permanent resident status generally leads to full citizenship after an unspecified period of time, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Tova Ellinson said.

Many Black Hebrews say a Jewish past would help explain otherwise inscrutable aspects of their identity.

“My great-great-grandmother had a Hebrew name, and there were certain practices that were passed down from generation to generation that nobody understood,” Kitanah recalls.

“There were a lot of different things passed on, like my grandmother telling me our people — our ancestors — came from the Holy Land, and we have a history there, and one day we will return,” she said.

Black Hebrews say they are descendants of the Jews expelled by the Romans in 70 C.E. According to Black Hebrew legend, some of those Jews reached West Africa, and many generations later their descendants were among the slaves brought to the United States.

Few in the Jewish establishment accept the Black Hebrews’ claims, however, and Israel’s Rabbinate ruled that they are not halachically Jewish.

In 1966, the community’s spiritual leader, Ben-Ammi Ben-Israel, said he had a vision that it was time for the Black Hebrews to return to their “homeland” of Israel.

In 1967, he left Chicago along with 430 followers and led them deep into the Liberian bush to re-enact the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

“As our fathers needed to sojourn before passing into the Promised Land, to shed their slave mentality, so we had to sojourn in Liberia,” Ben-Israel once explained to the Jerusalem Post.

Community members stayed in the African bush for the next two years, braving heavy rains in leaky tents.

Ravaged by poverty, hunger and illness, they tried to learn to live off the land. Two years later — after nearly three- fourths of the group had returned to the United States — 120 of the Black Hebrews moved to Israel.

They were joined over the years by others who entered Israel as tourists and stayed on after their visas expired.

The Black Hebrews’ path toward Israeli citizenship has been long and arduous.

Originally offered citizenship under the Law of Return in 1969, the community’s status later was challenged and revoked. From 1973 through the early 1990s, the community had no legal status, and many members of the group — who had renounced their U.S. citizenship — were left stateless.

As a result, Black Hebrews could not hold legal jobs, send their children to Israeli schools or utilize national health care services.

The Black Hebrews’ cause was not helped by their insistence that they were the true Jews and that the Israelis were usurpers. As their case made its was through Israeli courts, they mounted a campaign against the state that many saw as vitriolic and anti-Semitic.

The community’s newspapers compared Israelis to Nazis and included images of money-grubbing Jews.

An Israeli government report issued in 1980 recommended that the Black Hebrews be taken through a gradual process of naturalization that would lead to citizenship. The government worried that deportation back to the United States might raise charges of racism.

The report’s recommendations were never implemented, however.

In 1989, then-Interior Minister Aryeh Deri visited Ben-Israel.

“There was an understanding, principles of agreement, between the community and the Ministry of the Interior,” Kitanah says. “The Ministry of the Interior was to grant us legal status.”

A year later, the ministry offered community members work permits, and in 1993 it granted them three-year temporary resident status.

“After temporary residency, we were to receive permanent residency and receive citizenship, but it didn’t go as planned,” Kitanah says.

Interior Ministry officials deny any such commitment.

They periodically extended the community’s temporary resident status, and in 1999 they offered community members Israeli identity cards. However, Many Black Hebrews said they weren’t able to get the cards.

The struggle for citizenship has been mired in controversy focused around the Black Hebrews’ purported lineage.

Early on, the Israeli Rabbinate determined that the Black Hebrews are not halachic Jews. Israel’s Supreme Court offered the community citizenship on the condition that they undergo formal Orthodox conversion.

But Ben-Israel refused, explaining that conversion would imply a rejection of the Black Hebrews’ lineage.

The Black Hebrews also resented being treated differently than the non-Jews among the more than 1 million immigrants who arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union during the 1990s. Though up to a quarter of the immigrants were not halachically Jewish, they were granted Israeli citizenship because of their family ties to Jews.

“Russian and other immigrants come in and introduce prostitution and other vices,” says Andrew Butler, a Black Hebrew performance artist living in Tel Aviv. “They don’t even want to abide by Jewish laws, and still Israel gives citizenship to them.”

Despite their struggles for acceptance, the Black Hebrews established a fast growing community. Members say it is deeply rooted in Biblical teachings, though they reject latter-day interpretations of the Bible, including such injunctions as the rabbinic prohibition against polygamy.

Adherents follow a strictly vegan diet; eschew caffeine, alcohol, drugs and cigarettes; and experiment with no-salt days, sugar-free weeks and raw-food weeks.

According to a study by researchers from Vanderbilt University and Meharry Medical College, the Black Hebrews have an extremely low level of cardiovascular disease, cancer and obesity.

In 1980, the community moved from overcrowded housing in Dimona to an abandoned absorption center nearby, which they cleaned and beautified.

The call their current environs the Village of Peace or the Island of Sanity, and it includes a vegan restaurant that is open to the public.

Community members say they welcome Israeli visitors and are involved in Dimona civic life.

Kitanah says that Black Hebrews “represent the city of Dimona and State of Israel.”

In 1999, for example, two Black Hebrews were part of the boy band that represented Israel at the Eurovision song contest — even though the two weren’t Israeli citizens.

One Black Hebrew youngster, Talila Bat-Israel, a young swimming champion, hopes to represent Israel in upcoming Olympic games.

Though her athletic ability may get her into the games, it remains to be seen whether or not Bat-Israel will be Israeli by then.

EL AVIV, Aug. 13 (JTA) –

When Lior Thaler and his best friend stopped by the Karnei Shomron mall, all they wanted was to order a slice of pizza and say hello to Lior’s sister, who was celebrating a friend’s birthday.

Two minutes later, Thaler lay unconscious with his body full of nails, his best friend was dead, his sister was in critical condition and the rest of the teenagers in the party either were dead or severely wounded.

Shay Inger was standing at a gas station with his friends awaiting a ride to B’nai Hay, a school for students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, located near the Palestinian city of Kalkilya.

A strange man walked up to the group and began, “Tell me something . . . ”

As the youngsters waited for the question, the man blew himself up. His detonator button flew into Inger’s windpipe and sliced it, shrapnel embedded itself in Inger’s frame and his body was flung to the ground.

Before losing consciousness, Shay saw body parts strewn around the gas station. Two of his friends were dead. Three others were wounded.

This week, the two boys — Thaler, 16, and Inger, 17 — are among 60 youngsters attending Camp Koby, a weeklong getaway in Israel for youths who were severely injured in terror attacks.

The getaway is the latest in a series of week-long camps run by Seth and Sherri Mandell, parents of the late Koby Mandell. Koby, along with a friend, was beaten to death by Palestinian assailants in May 2001 while hiking in the Judean Desert not far from his home.

Shortly after Koby was murdered, the B’nai Akiva youth movement invited his younger brother, Daniel, to attend Camp Moshava in the United States as a gesture of support.

Though the experience generally was positive, Daniel said he felt different than the other campers.

So the Mandells decided to create a safe place in Israel for children who have been impacted directly by terrorism.

At Camp Koby getaways, “If a child wakes up crying in the middle of the night,” says Jackie Goldman, director of creative art at the camp, “the other kids in the bunk have ‘been there, done that.’ The kid doesn’t have to hide it or be ashamed of the fact that he is crying.”

Seth Mandell says the camps “came out of our own experience. What was missing was not financial support, not education, but an opportunity to be around other people who had lost immediate family members.”

Only those suffering the same fate, he says, can fully understand and support each other.

“A week after shiva, the children go back to school,” he says. “Other kids don’t know how to deal with them. Teachers don’t know how to deal with them. There is no training whatsoever about how to deal with these kids. So they feel tremendously isolated.”

Camp Koby getaways give children a sense of unity and camaraderie, he says.

He hopes this week’s Camp Koby will do the same, mainly by letting the kids have fun.

“It’s a regular camp with basketball, swimming, boating and a trip to Superland — typical camp stuff,” Goldman says.

The difference is that some activities — like art, music and drama programs in which campers may choose to express their feelings on terrorism — are led by a therapist.

It’s important that kids who want to talk feel comfortable discussing their experiences, Mandell says.

Inger says he intends to take full advantage of that opportunity.

“I came here to meet other people who were wounded by a terrorist attack, to hear other people’s stories,” he says. “When I hear other people’s stories I feel I am part of a group, people who went through what I went through. They understand more what I am talking about. It’s just not the same with people who never went through this.”

Like others at the camp, Inger has endured multiple surgeries, and has more surgery ahead of him.

His first one was in the ambulance on the way to the hospital after the attack.

“My right hand had nearly been severed,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone. “There were two nails in my heart, all kinds of shrapnel throughout my chest, stomach, hands and arms. My skin had come off from both my hands, and some of my finger bones were shattered.”

What worried paramedics the most was that Inger’s lungs had begun to fill with fluid. They did an immediate incision to drain the fluid.

“Without that,” Inger says, “I wouldn’t have made it alive to the hospital.”

Inger was moved to a regular hospital bed after one week in the intensive care unit, but Thaler was shuttled back and forth for three weeks as he underwent a series of operations.

He survived but his sister did not, dying 12 days after the attack.

“The first few days, I cried a tremendous amount,” says counselor Bracha Cohen, a psychology student who has worked at various Camp Koby getaways. “In the beginning, it was very hard for me to be here. I felt there was not enough room in my heart to store all the pain.”

The hardest parts are the camp getaways for injured kids, she says.

“You see the damage. You see kids who can’t be in the sun, who get tired quickly, who have skin burned all over their bodies. You actually see the damage to their lives,” she says.

Though Cohen continues to listen to everyone’s story, she has learned to build a wall around her heart. Otherwise, she says, she couldn’t handle working at the camps.

“So many kids were wounded or lost family. So many children, so much pain,” she says. “It’s such a small country, and there is so much suffering. To see so many severe injuries is very difficult.”

But children and staff somehow are able to find the bright spots in their experiences.

Inger, a soft-spoken boy, says he is grateful both to be alive and for all the support he has received from friends and family.

At the hospital, he says, “there were always lots of people, and they left me gifts and notes. I saw these things once I woke up. I saw that a lot of people cared, even people I didn’t know from around the country and the world.”

Even the paramedics who saved Inger’s life stopped by to check on him during his two-week stay in the hospital. They are still in touch with the boy.

Inger also got spiritual support from his grandmother’s Jewish prayer group in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where his family is from. Jewish students throughout Brazil wrote him letters as well.

“My son, who is 14, was in the camp for people who lost family members,” Mandell says. “He said the kids at the camp are much nicer, because they have their priorities straight. They realize that the regular way teens treat each other is nonsense. These are much better kids, more open, more caring about other people.”

TEL AVIV, Aug. 18 (JTA) –

For many travelers, the threat of terrorism is a

compelling reason to stay away from Israel.

For Maria Louisa Zayon, it was a compelling reason to visit.

“In Israel now it’s a very hard time,” says the 21-year journalism student

from Havana, Cuba. “I think it’s very important that people like us come to

be together with Israel.”

By “people like us,” Zayon means the eight Cuban Jewish youths on the

birthright israel program, the first organized group from Cuba to visit

Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

On Sunday, the participants finished a 10-day tour on birthright, which

provides free trips for Jewish youths aged 18 to 26 who have never visited

Israel on a peer tour.

They were accompanied by William Miller, director of ORT-Cuba and a

counselor for the trip, and David Tasher, a board member of the organized

Cuban Jewish community.

“We came here to build bridges between Cuba and Israel,” Miller said, “to

bring Jewish youth closer to Israel, to see a little more about the reality

here.”

Cuban Jews, he says, know of Israel only through the Torah or through

contemporary books and magazines.

“To see the history behind us, in front of us, to see Judaism before us, to

see the Torah in front of us, living, was something incredible,” he said.

Delegations from Switzerland, Bulgaria and Venezuela also took part in

birthright for the first time this summer.

In all, some 8,500 youths are expected to visit Israel on birthright this

summer — a 70 percent increase over last summer — and 15,000 for the year.

Some 48,000 young Jews from 34 countries have taken part in birthright

since the program began in 1999.

Cuba and Israel have not had diplomatic ties since Cuban President Fidel

Castro broke them just before the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Castro offered training and support to PLO guerillas over the years and was

an ally of such anti-Israel figures as Palestinian Authority President

Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.

Still, Cuba began allowing its Jews to emigrate in 1994 for a fee, paid by

the Jewish state. By 2000, some 500 Cuban Jews had reached Israel under the

behind-the-scenes arrangement, known as Operation Cigar.

For most of those who remained in Cuba, however, a trip to Israel was out

of the question — until birthright came along.

One of the most memorable birthright experiences for the Cuban group was

standing at the Western Wall on Tisha B’Av, “seeing all the different

Jewish people all together, seeing everyone and being part of this also,”

Miller said.

Annette Eli, 22, said another powerful moment was landing at Ben Gurion

Airport.

“For the first time we saw the Land of Israel, we had an aerial view of Tel

Aviv,” she said. “We were very emotional.”

“The kids were all crying,” Miller said.

Rosa Delgado, 23, was especially excited about the Diaspora Museum in Tel

Aviv, where she was able to learn about the Jewish community of Turkey –

where her family has roots — and about Jewish communities in South America.

The Cuban participants “were very excited and emotional” during the trip,

said Tal Somech, the security guard who accompanied them. “They said that

it was the most beautiful 10 days of their lives.”

The youngsters intend to bring their positive memories back to Cuba,

telling people what Israel was like.

“The program has made every single one of its participants the best

ambassador Israel could possibly have in his or her respective country of

origin,” Natan Sharansky, Cabinet minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora

affairs and chair of birthright israel’s steering committee, said in a news

release.

Not only has the program increased the number of Jewish youths with

personal experience in Israel, but it has boosted Israel’s tourism industry

during an economic crisis.

“Birthright israel has made an important contribution to both local tourism

and the long-term strengthening of Zionist roots amongst Diaspora youth,”

Avi Ellah, president of the Israel Hotel Association, said in a recent

statement.

The various birthright groups met up in Jerusalem on Aug. 12 for a gala

celebration that included appearances by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and

birthright israel funders such as Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt.

As each country represented was announced, that delegation raised its

country’s flag. When the Cuban flag was displayed, the Cuban

representatives became teary-eyed.

“We are the pioneers in this kind of experience,” Zayon said proudly,

“because after us, other groups of young Jewish people can come from Cuba.

And we want that to happen.”

Organizing this first trip took a lot of effort, Miller said.

After finding out about the program on the Internet, Miller contacted

birthright israel offices in Jerusalem. He then arranged sponsorships from

Canadian Jewish federations.

With a letter of invitation in hand showing that the trip would be fully

funded by outside sources, Miller approached Cuban government officials.

“We explained to the government our reasons why it’s important for Jewish

people to come to Israel,” said Miller, who had to explain the Jews’

historical and religious connection to the land. “They understood.”

“Now the land of Israel, the Holy Land, is nearer to us,” Zayon said. “We

always heard about Israel, the land of our forefathers and foremothers, but

now it’s reality for us. We are actually in Israel. It’s amazing.”

TEL AVIV, Aug. 28 (JTA) –

A man lies on the ground in front of this no-frills guest house in Jerusalem as three young women rush toward him.

Reaching into her large red bags, one pulls out a brace and snaps it on the young man’s neck. Another pulls out a strap and ties his feet together, while the third pulls out bandages and wraps them around the man’s arms.

The young Magen David Adom volunteers have made it to graduation day.

These graduates of the Israeli EMT course are among the thousands of Diaspora Jews coming to Israel this summer on youth and tour programs.

Despite nearly three years of intermittent terrorism, the number of tourists coming to Israel is again on the rise.

“The world situation has become less safe,” said Michael Freeman, director in Israel of the Federation of Zionist Youth, which, along with Young Judaea, sponsored the EMT course. “Why not come to Israel? It’s no more or less dangerous than anywhere else in the world these days — New York, Bali, Russia.”

The EMT program has more participants this summer than ever, Freeman says. He attributes the increase to the new perception of Israel as comparatively safer, and to the program’s reputation for safety and security.

“Parents have come to trust our name,” he said.

The number of visitors in Zionist youth tourist groups to Israel has almost rebounded to figures from the year 2000, according to Zvi Levran, director of Jewish Experience of Israel.

But the number of other tourists is still down, however.

“Many organizations that appeal to unaffiliated or less affiliated populations — those not as committed to Israel — have not gotten back to their earlier numbers,” Levran said.

In general, however, the recent trend has been an increase in tourism to Israel.

“We’re starting to see pent-up interest — Jews and Christians who have wanted to come to Israel but have not done so because of the situation,” said Ari Marom, director of North American operations at Israel’s Tourism Ministry.

Before the Aug. 19 Jerusalem bus bombing, the situation had become relatively stable, and anxiety about the Gulf War had passed, he said.

“The Jerusalem bombing will begin to impact Israel tourism this fall,” he predicted.

Meanwhile, countries around the world have sent a higher number of tourists to Israel this year than last.

“There is a nice percentage of increase,” Marom said. “But you have to keep it in proportion.”

In 2000, 3.2 million tourists visited the Jewish state. In 2002, there were fewer than 900,000.

This summer, Levran said, “there was a 100 percent increase in Israel-experience programs.”

That’s both good news and bad news. The good news is the increase. The bad news is that the drop in tourism from 2000 to 2002 was so severe that even a 100 percent increase this year hasn’t brought tourism back to its pre-intifada levels.

At its nadir since the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000, the number of youths visiting Israel was down 92 percent, meaning that only 800 youngsters came instead of 10,000.

That figure of 800 “has been more than doubled this year,” Levran said, “but still it’s only 2,000 in comparison to 10,000.”

A number of additional factors have kept tourists away, including the global economic recession, anti-Israel boycotts in Europe and fear of travel after Sept. 11.

Travel from East Asia and Latin America is way down from 2000, partly because of changed airline routing, according to Marom.

“From South America, you have to change flights in Europe or the USA, and that in itself is a main reason for not coming,” Marom said.

Numerous European airlines either reduced or eliminated flights to Israel, making it more difficult for potential tourists to get here.

European Christian groups that came during the past three years often made their presence known publicly as a way of showing solidarity with the Jewish state.

In fact, when violence heats up Christian tourists from the United States often are slower to cancel their plans than Jewish tourists, but afterward the Christians “are much harder to get back,” Marom noted.

Typically, Jews make up less than 50 percent of tourists to Israel. In 2002, however, Jews well exceeded the 50 percent mark.

Those who came to Israel this summer included tourists on organized tours, people visiting family in Israel and those coming to explore on their own. Jews made up the majority of the latter two groups.

Some tour groups, like those that work in conjunction with the Jewish Agency for Israel, are veritable security experts, Levran and Freeman said.

At 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day, leaders of Jewish Agency-affiliated programs are in touch with a “situation room” that is connected to police and army surveillance units.

Groups are advised on where it’s safe and unsafe to travel on any given day. All groups are accompanied by a guard on outings.

With the use of a global-positioning devices, parents can know where their children are at any given moment — something that’s not possible “when kids are in their own city in the USA,” Levran pointed out.

Youths on the Magen David Adom volunteer program said they were not afraid, even as they prepared to accompany paramedics on calls that could take them into scenes of bloodshed.

“I feel that as a Jew, it’s necessary to contribute to the country,” said Adam Benjamin — who, with his friend Rafael Broch, arranged for 18 others youngsters from England to participate in the MDA program. “If that means facing things that Israelis have to face on a daily basis, why should I not?”

Non-Jewish friends back home, however, often have trouble understanding the reasons for visiting Israel these days.

“My non-Jewish friends in England think I’m mad coming here,” Lisa Shama said.

Just days ago, she watched her instructors on television as they attended to victims of a suicide bombing. Later that night she heard a firsthand account of what had happened.

“I think what English people don’t understand is that despite the bombs, normal life still carries on,” Tal Heymann said.

Broch agreed.

“You can either get on with your life just as Israelis do, or sink back into the Galut,” he said, referring to the Diaspora. “That’s not the kind of Jew I want to be.”

TEL AVIV, Aug. 21 (JTA) –

Dominique Haas was in a particularly good mood on the evening of April 29.

The young pastry chef had just closed a deal with a new cafe, selling them her entire line of cakes. Best friends with the owner at Mike’s Place, a Tel Aviv pub where she once had worked her way up from waitress to manager, Haas volunteered to help out that evening, knowing the bar was short of workers.

“She was dancing around the place all night,” recalls Gal Ganzman, Mike’s Place’s owner. “She was exceptionally happy on that day.”

Haas was not the only one who had just hit her stride that afternoon: Ran Baron, a regular at Mike’s Place, had just finished recording a song.

The words were still in Baron’s pocket when, just after midnight, a suicide bomber tried to enter the bar.

Avi Tabib, the security guard, stopped him, and the bomber blew himself up at the entrance.

Baron was killed instantly. Haas lost her arm and, hours later at the hospital, her life.

Yanai Weiss — a guitarist and, according to Ganzman, “the spiritual father of the Tuesday-night jam program” — also was killed.

Despite the terror, trauma and property damage, Mike’s Place was up and running exactly one week later, on Israel’s Independence Day.

“They came and blew up in the doorway of our house, in the place where we were at our peak, enjoying life, having a drink, listening to live music,” Ganzman says. “They came and killed us. To prove they didn’t achieve anything, we opened on Independence Day — to show the world, to show the terrorists, that terror will not achieve anything.”

“It will not destroy Israel,” he continues. “It won’t even destroy Mike’s Place.”

Today, nearly four months later, Mike’s Place is alive and well. Even on a Monday night the bar was nearly full, with clients clapping, singing and dancing to live music.

Memory of the tragedy, however, also is alive and well: Right in front of the entrance is a huge glass jar full of change with a sign that reads, “The Life After Terror Fund.”

The fund was created immediately after the attack to support victims of the bombing. Staff and patrons also held memorial ceremonies around the world — in Tel Aviv, London, Toronto, New York and Chicago — some of which were broadcast on the Internet for those who couldn’t be there.

A tree was planted in Haas’ memory in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park.

Ganzman submitted a request to erect a statue in front of Mike’s Place in honor of the victims. Approval is still pending from the Tel Aviv municipality.

Organizing the memorials and rebuilding Mike’s Place were a kind of “work therapy” for Ganzman.

For a week after the bombing, he says, “the whole staff and all the regulars crashed at my place.”

“Everyone was together, trying to get ourselves better, mourning our friends, taking trips to the hospital, helping our injured friends get better, rebuilding the bar, restocking, planning the opening ceremony — all in one week,” he says. “It was just insane.”

“And I think,” he ventures, “that’s what actually kept us sane: Being so focused, working 22-hour days right from the day after the explosion, helping each other, crying together, laughing together, having this goal of reopening quickly and having a big impressive ceremony.”

For the ceremony, which drew 1,000 patrons and journalists from around the world, the pub printed T-shirts saying “Still Here.” The shirts sold out immediately.

The regulars say they’re happy the bar is still around.

“This is the best place to play in Israel,” says guitarist Koby Bardougo, who has been performing at Mike’s Place for a year. “Our music gets loved and appreciated the way we want it to be.”

Eli Ben Yosef, who at 77 is perhaps the oldest regular at Mike’s Place, calls it “my home away from home.”

Ben Yosef was at the bar the night of the explosion.

“My friend Zohar — I dance with her a lot — she was injured in her knee,” he recalls. “I stayed and talked with her until the ambulance came.”

Patrons emphatically reject the notion that memories of the tragedy have made people afraid of returning.

“I’m not at all afraid coming after the attack,” says Clil Ata — who, seated at the pub’s entrance, received hugs from numerous patrons going in and out.

“It’s even more important to show that nobody can beat us or scare us,” Ata says. “We come here, this is our home, this is where we live, we deserve to be here. Nobody will take me away from my friends and family here.”

Sar Fouqs agrees.

“I am not afraid to be here,” he says. “I fought in Lebanon. This is nothing.”

“Half the state already had terrorist attacks,” Yonatan Shlomi points out. “If I was afraid after a terrorist attack, I would never go out.

“Aside from which,” he adds with a grin, “if you’re going to die, best to go out listening to good music.”

The night of the bombing, a videographer was filming patrons for a documentary on the bar. The filmmaker, Jack Baxter, a New Yorker and a regular at the bar during his Tel Aviv visit, was making the movie “to show the world that there is a different kind of Israel: a blues bar, people dancing on the tables, having a great time — Israel,” Ganzman says with a touch of irony.

Haas, who generally hated being filmed, was in such an upbeat mood that she let the camera follow her around that night for half an hour. The video captures the last minutes of her life, as well as the bombing itself and the aftermath.

Addressing the story of the attack, Ganzman says this: “We haven’t had control of the story, but we have had some control of the ending.”

“If people remember that since the bombing we have done so many nice things — helping people, keeping on partying, getting back on our feet, dancing, and making people happy again — then we have a happy ending,” he says.