about the book
The beachfront nightclub and blues bar is dedicated to great music, one of those friendly gathering spots where young people go to let loose and have a good time. Most nights it is filled with Jews, Muslims, tourists, locals, and ex-pats. Religion and politics is left at the door.
In Tel Aviv that doesn’t happen often. The Israeli city is ripe with tension, but Mike’s Place seemed to transcend the hostility. That is why filmmakers and documentarians Jack Baxter (American) and Joshua Faudem (Israeli) picked the place to make their film, Blues on the Beach. Within the panels of this graphic novel, readers will see the beauty of the area, experience the culture, and catch the slang and dialect.
Little did Jack and Joshua know that shortly after starting to film, two suicide terrorists will attack the club. Three people will die, and over fifty will be injured, including the two filmmakers. The attack happens on April 30, 2003, and this is the true story of what led up to this horrific event and how the survivors rebuild their lives. It is told through the eyes of the filmmakers, the owners, and customers like Dom, Lenny, Avi, Gal, and others. These are real people coping with events beyond their control.
Before the attack, the political atmosphere had grown worse and worse. Tensions build as the peace talks stumble along, and terrorists enter the country and make their plans. One bomber doesn’t make it into the bar but still the devastation is horrific. Through it all, the cameras kept rolling, catching everything in grisly detail. HAMAS claims responsibility, even releasing a martyrdom video. The bombers were thought to be Palestinian. They were actually British!
The graphic novel speaks to the resilience of the survivors and stresses the fact that hostile factions can live in harmony. Although there is conflict, normal life must continue. The novel also corrects misconceptions about the Qur’an. Quotes are sprinkled throughout the book.
about the author
Jack Baxter is a filmmaker and freelance journalist based in New York City. He, along with his wife Fran Strauss-Baxter, produced the award-winning documentary film, Blues on the Beach, with Israeli filmmaker Joshua Faudem. During the filming, Jack and Joshua experienced the terrorist suicide bombing of Mike’s Place, an Israeli beachfront bar and blues club in Tel Aviv on April 30, 2003.
In 2005, Jack’s literary agent suggested that he write a nonfiction book about his personal experience during the bombing. New information had recently been revealed about the two British perpetrators, exposing an international conspiracy. Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif had a direct connection to Mohammad Sidique Khan, the mastermind of the July 7, 2005 London transit attacks. In March of 2006, Jack flew back to Tel Aviv for the first time since the bombing. There he received more medical treatments, interviewed every person who was in the bar that night, and started writing. But his heart just wasn’t into it and the project just gathered dust.
Jashua approached Jack about writing a screenplay and turning the survivor interviews into another documentary. Two years later the script was finished, and movie people promised the moon but delivered nothing. A publisher read the new script and thought it would translate well into graphic novel form. More than a decade after that fateful night at Mike’s Place, the novel was published.
So here is a little more of the untold story. Jack, badly injured in the bombing, was in a coma and now, years later, is still healing. He learned that the terrorists were Arabs but not Palestinians. He also learned that news of his documentary film probably caused them to pick Mike’s Place as a target. He learned that Avi-Yabib, the Mike’s Place bouncer, kept Asif Hanif from getting in; if he had failed, everyone, including Jack would have died.
Jack and his wife, Fran, are now very active members of Strength to Strength, a terrorism survivor organization. They have traveled the world helping other survivors cope. Jack has not made one cent off of the story about the attack.
Sources:
Official book website and book trailer
Author interview: LA Times
Author interview: The Beat Comics Culture
about the co-author
Joshua Faudem was born in Detroit and moved to Jerusalem when he was eight years old. After serving the compulsory Israeli military service, Joshua attended the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. In January of 2003 while visiting Tel Aviv, he noticed Mike’s Place, a bar next to the American Embassy. He was familiar with the hole-in-the-wall blues club, because one was located in Jerusalem and the owner of both bars was a family friend. After stopping by, he ended up with a job tending bar.
While working one of his shifts, he met Jack Baxter, an American journalist newly arrived in Israel who intended to do an article about one of the attendees of the peace talks. Another reporter scooped his story, so he was looking for something else to write about. He just wandered into Mike’s Place and was intrigued how the customers (Muslims, Jews, locals, and ex-pats) all got along so well. Since Joshua had studied documentary filmmaking, he agreed to work with Jack on a documentary about the bar and its patrons. They titled it Blues on the Beach.
After working an earlier shift on April 3, 2003, Joshua and his girlfriend returned to the bar around ten with his camera. That night’s crowd was heavy, so the two sat outside on the patio, sharing a table with Jack. Several people stopped by to say goodbye to the American, who was flying home to New York in the morning. As they walked back inside sometime around 12.30 a.m., the terrorist’s bomb exploded. Two musicians and a bartender were killed and fifty were injured. Jack suffered a brain contusion, hearing loss, and burns, and Joshua also suffered hearing loss and post-traumatic stress. The bomber was identified as Asif Hanif, and his partner, Omar Khan Sharif, did not succeed in getting into the bar. He ran off and was later found floating in the sea; it is still uncertain what happened to him.
Joshua has gone on to film, produce, and direct other notable documentaries and television shows in Israel, Europe, and North America. Though surviving the bombing and finishing Blues on the Beach took a huge toll on him, writing the graphic novel Mike’s Place with Jack allowed Joshua to come to grips with those terrifying events and find peace to move on.
Sources:
Author website
Article about the suicide bombing: New York Times
about the illustrator
Koren Shadmi was born in Israel and illustrated his first published graphic novel at the age of seventeen. Profile 107 was written by his mentor, Uri Fink; as probably the most renowned cartoonist in Israel, Uri created the first Israeli superhero comic in the 1970s. Their collaboration resurrected this superhero. Now he is a slacker who tries to not use his super powers. Koren says this was his first and last venture in the superhero world!
After serving for three years as a graphic designer and illustrator in the Israeli Defense Force, Koren moved to New York and studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts. He now teaches at the school and works freelance commissions. His clients include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, BusinessWeek, the Village Voice, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Wired, ESPN Magazine, Random House, Humana, Samsung, and Smirnoff.
Koren’s graphic novels have been published in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Israel, and the United States. His art work was selected for the Best American Comics 2009 anthology and won several awards from the Society of Illustrators.
Koren makes his home in Brooklyn, New York.
Sources:
Illustrator website
Illustrator biography: Mike’s Place
Illustrator page: Facebook
Illustrator interview: Comic Foundry
Also illustrated by Koren Shadmi:
Abaddon. ZZ Comics. 2015.
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