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August 29, 2003/Elul 1 5763, Vol. 55, No. 53
Patrons recover from terrorism
LOOLWA KHAZZOOM
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
TEL AVIV - 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 cere-monies around the world.
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