Israeli beachfront bar rises from ashes
Israeli beachfront bar rises from ashes
April 27, 2004
TEL AVIV, Israel -- A large white sign announces "blues by the beach," advertising the free live music within. It hangs outside Mike's Place, a tiny beachfront bar in Tel Aviv located next to the U.S. Embassy. It is a watering hole dedicated to friendship, love and good music and is an oasis of tolerance, welcoming all comers regardless of religion, politics or ethnicity.
The white sign took on a more poignant meaning on the early morning of April 30, 2003.
In the first suicide attack in Israel perpetrated by a foreign national, a British Muslim blew himself up at the bar's entrance, killing three and wounding more than 50.
"Everything changed in the blink of an eyelash," says documentary filmmaker Joshua Faudem.
Faudem, an Israeli, was at Mike's Place filming that night with New York-based producer and director Jack Baxter, who was two weeks into a planned one-month shoot for a documentary about the bar. Baxter had hooked up with Faudem and his then-girlfriend Pavla Fleischer to tell audiences at home about the "other Israel" he had discovered in the bar -- a microcosm of Israel where ordinary people could hang out and listen to live blues; a place where, according to Faudem, "the (Middle East) conflict wasn't felt."
The filmmakers had put down their camera after an evening of filming. Faudem and Fleischer left Baxter at a sidewalk table to listen to the music inside when the terrorist struck, killing musicians Yanai Weiss and Ran Baron.
"From the minute the bomb went off and Jack was on the ground -- dead, we thought -- we knew what we had to do," Faudem recalls. "The people behind the camera became the main characters."
Baxter had been caught by the blast outside. Faudem, uninjured, picked up his camera and began filming.
"The minute the police had finished with me and we knew Jack was alive -- about 10 minutes after the pigua (terrorist attack) -- we resumed shooting," Faudem says.
The trio's footage of a laughing Dominique Hass, filmed minutes before she died, and of the mayhem that ensued after the bomb blast was broadcast the next day on Israeli TV and beamed around the world by Sky News and other international news broadcasters.
A documentary originally conceived as a depiction of Israeli life without terrorism evolved into a record of what happens to people emotionally after a bombing. The filmmakers continued their filming for another month and a half after that fateful night.
The resulting film -- "Blues by the Beach" -- is due to premiere at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque on Thursday as part of a memorial ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the bomb attack.
"It's about how you rebuild," says Faudem, glancing around at a restored and expanded Mike's Place.
The last scenes shot by Faudem record Fleischer getting on a plane for Prague, the pressures of the film project having ended their relationship. Baxter, meanwhile, is back in New York, still recovering from his injuries.
But the docu ends on an optimistic note: Avi Tabib, the guard who prevented the terrorist from entering the bar, and who was not expected to recover from his wounds, is back on duty at Mike's Place.
The white sign took on a more poignant meaning on the early morning of April 30, 2003.
In the first suicide attack in Israel perpetrated by a foreign national, a British Muslim blew himself up at the bar's entrance, killing three and wounding more than 50.
"Everything changed in the blink of an eyelash," says documentary filmmaker Joshua Faudem.
Faudem, an Israeli, was at Mike's Place filming that night with New York-based producer and director Jack Baxter, who was two weeks into a planned one-month shoot for a documentary about the bar. Baxter had hooked up with Faudem and his then-girlfriend Pavla Fleischer to tell audiences at home about the "other Israel" he had discovered in the bar -- a microcosm of Israel where ordinary people could hang out and listen to live blues; a place where, according to Faudem, "the (Middle East) conflict wasn't felt."
The filmmakers had put down their camera after an evening of filming. Faudem and Fleischer left Baxter at a sidewalk table to listen to the music inside when the terrorist struck, killing musicians Yanai Weiss and Ran Baron.
"From the minute the bomb went off and Jack was on the ground -- dead, we thought -- we knew what we had to do," Faudem recalls. "The people behind the camera became the main characters."
Baxter had been caught by the blast outside. Faudem, uninjured, picked up his camera and began filming.
"The minute the police had finished with me and we knew Jack was alive -- about 10 minutes after the pigua (terrorist attack) -- we resumed shooting," Faudem says.
The trio's footage of a laughing Dominique Hass, filmed minutes before she died, and of the mayhem that ensued after the bomb blast was broadcast the next day on Israeli TV and beamed around the world by Sky News and other international news broadcasters.
A documentary originally conceived as a depiction of Israeli life without terrorism evolved into a record of what happens to people emotionally after a bombing. The filmmakers continued their filming for another month and a half after that fateful night.
The resulting film -- "Blues by the Beach" -- is due to premiere at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque on Thursday as part of a memorial ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the bomb attack.
"It's about how you rebuild," says Faudem, glancing around at a restored and expanded Mike's Place.
The last scenes shot by Faudem record Fleischer getting on a plane for Prague, the pressures of the film project having ended their relationship. Baxter, meanwhile, is back in New York, still recovering from his injuries.
But the docu ends on an optimistic note: Avi Tabib, the guard who prevented the terrorist from entering the bar, and who was not expected to recover from his wounds, is back on duty at Mike's Place.
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