Public event „Mike’s Place: Love, Blues and Terror in Tel Aviv 2003”

Date of event: 26.11. 2015

The lecture was opened by Alexandr Vondra, PCTR Director and the former Minister of Defence and the Czech Foreign Minister, and hosted by Jiří Š. Cieslar from the CEVRO Institute. The main speaker of the event was Joshua Faudem, who is a documentary filmmaker, a co-author of the comic book Mike´s Place and a witness of the terrorist act in Tel Aviv in 2003.

The main guest began his speech with brief information about the current events in Israel and the terror attack in Paris. Joshua was born in Detroit and when he was 6 years old, he moved to Jerusalem. Since his childhood, he wanted to be a filmmaker. After studying at FAMU in Prague, he returned to Israel, where he began to work as a bartender at Mike’s Place owned by his old friend. This place was an extraordinary one in the region. People of many nationalities met there and nobody was concerned about the religious faith of others. Everyone had fun every night.

Originally, Joshua wanted to make a film about Russian emigrants, however, when he got an offer from an American director Jack Baxter to film and direct a documentary about Mike’s Place, he couldn’t refuse. “We filmed staff and visitors of the club. We asked them why they chose Mike’s Place. Every day there was live music.” he said. “We sat with Jack in the garden in front of the bar and discussed further plans related to the film. I went inside for a drink. And that is when it happened. Suddenly I saw many of my friends being killed and injured. I was in shock but I was able to run for a camera and I tried to capture the situation.” His presentation was supplemented not only with a trailer from the document Blues by the Beach, but also with a comic book trailer of which he is the author: “Mike´s Place: A True Story of Love, Blues, and Terror in Tel Aviv“. After the stirring story, there was time for questions. The meeting was rounded off with the autograph signing of the book “Mike’s Place” (new Czech edition), which was available for a discounted price.

We would like to thank our media partners: Civic Institute, ParlamentniListy.cz, CEVRO, Eretz.cz, Czech-Israeli Chamber of Commerce and journal Defence and Strategy.