If you've ever been to Nick's English Hut, Nate Jackson's piercing blue eyes, intimidating gaze and stocky build certainly linger in your memory hours after he checks your ID and lets you into the bar. Even if you're not of age, maybe you've seen his round, smiling face, three-inch goatee and shaved head walking through campus or riding along 10th Street on his Intruder motorcycle. \nBut Jackson is much more than a bouncer at Nick's, or a 22-year-old undergraduate. He's a guitarist, a songwriter and most relevantly, he was the manager of Mike's Place, the blues bar that suffered a suicide bombing Tuesday night in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing three and injuring more than 50 others. The bar was popular with both tourists and locals, in a high profile location with the U.S. Embassy as its neighbor.\nThe 1 a.m. suicide bombing occurred after Mahmoud Abbas was sworn in as the new Palestinian Prime Minister, who promises to crack down on violence. It was claimed as a joint operation by al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Yassir Arafat's Fatah movement, and the Islamic group Hamas. The bomber was British, 21-year-old Asif Mohammed Hanif, the first European suicide bomber of the Palestinian uprising.\nJackson received a phone call just minutes after the bombing. And minutes after learning he had lost three of his best friends, he had to perform on stage for Z100's Live Musical Performance class.\n"The soul of my music comes from Israel," Jackson said. "It's probably the best performance I had ever given because it was true blue."\nJackson moved back to America to study at IU in January 2002. He first studied in Israel during his senior year of high school. After graduating in 1997, he moved back to Israel and joined the army (required for new immigrants), serving as a combat paratrooper for a year and eight months. Originally he intended to study at a rabbinical school, but he learned that wasn't the lifestyle for him. Because he hung out at Mike's Place in Jerusalem during his senior year abroad, he jumped at the chance to help open a Tel Aviv location after he left the army. \nJackson said he was so involved in the construction process that his blood is in the floorboards.\n"There's no war at Mike's Place. You can see a college student talking to a rabbi sipping beer with a foreign correspondent questioning a Palestinian, and you close your eyes and then open them and ask 'Is this real?'" he said. "Mike's Place had that soulful Jerusalem vibe. It turned into the place to go to and hang out, smoke hookah, go to the beach. What's better than sipping Guinness on the Mediterranean coast? You can't beat it."\nThe bar was not only a place to go and indulge in a beer or a good conversation, but for Jackson, Mike's Place became his family. While manager, he hired bartender and French native Domonique Caroline Hess, one of the three killed Tuesday. \nFor someone who had just lost his best friend, Jackson is surprisingly calm and composed. He speaks as though he's had 24 years to come to terms with his loss, not 24 hours.\n"She was beautiful, compassionate ... She had an invaluable street wisdom to her, always walked with a bounce," Jackson said, his sad eyes hidden by wraparound sunglasses. "We knew her a year, during which time we fired five cooks, and one day she just came into the kitchen and started throwing stuff together. My jaw dropped, I was like 'Did you forget to tell us you went to culinary arts school in France? We needed you!' She was so humble and reserved." \nJackson said Hess' death is a tragedy. "From what I know her arm was blown off. She must have died from loss of blood," he said.\nLiving in Israel for five years gave Jackson a thick skin, "like leather." In 1999 he saw a suicide bombing right before his eyes, which he said proved to him you can't stop going to work, you just need to take another route.\n"Violence creates more violence, hatred creates more hatred, vengeance causes more vengeance," Jackson said. "There's a human instinct of protection and a human instinct for compassion and love. You have to integrate this idea of compassion into your sadness, into this emotional disparity and mourning. But you can't let it take over your life."\nSenior Rachel Zukrow said she identifies with this desensitized mind-set. In the spring of 2002, Zukrow studied abroad in Tel Aviv, a semester during which she frequented Mike's Place often. She spoke with one of her study abroad friends Tuesday night and said they both agreed it was very strange knowing they had sat in the exact place a suicide bombing occurred. \nShe said it hits especially close to home.\n"The government obviously has money and resources set up so basically two days later they can begin construction, because they want everything to go back to normal as soon as possible," Zukrow said. "After the passover bombing, I walked by it the next day and it was terrible, but within three weeks it was all back to normal, you couldn't tell. But being in Israel, especially being young, you can never get away with the situation you're living in. There's always a reminder; even though a cafe or club may look same, you know (the bombing) happened and affected everyone." \nWhen the bomb went off, Mike's Place patrons were enjoying the weekly Jam Night, a tradition that Jackson himself started. He remembers this and shakes his head, pointing out had he been living in Israel, he would most certainly have been there.\n"I wish I was there -- these people were my family," he said, comparing his yearning to be back in Israel to an American abroad during Sept. 11. But he said there's no point in rushing back tomorrow, as in a few days life will return to normal for Israelis and Mike's Place.\n"There's almost a certain beauty to know that there was a suicide bombing and then two or three hours later people are still walking by, bums are still bumming money," Jackson said. "They stay strong and life goes on."\nThe progressive attitude Jackson attributes to Israelis, he embodies himself. Jackson's roommate Jason Carlson, an IU staff member in the School of Education, said he has a worldly perspective you seldom see in someone his age.\n"I do get to see a side of him most people don't get to," Carlson said. "He's kind-hearted. There's a certain code of ethics and morals that he follows that are admirable. And he has a loyalty to his friends that seems intuitive."\nCarlson added that because of his passionate, open-minded nature, Jackson is someone who is very interesting to talk to.\n"Serving in the armed forces and the things he's probably seen during his time in service are alone enough to make one grasp what reality is," Carlson said. "Nate has made seeing those things help put things in perspective; it gives life more realistic meaning and that's how one in his position handles something like this."\nJackson's friends evidently return his loyalty. The interview is interrupted by his cell phone ring; on the other line is Darren from Los Angeles, someone Jackson met in Israel who he hasn't spoken to in more than a year. He is grateful for the sympathy, thanking his friend numerous times, yet remaining composed: "Yeah, I lost three friends. It's terrible, but you know, keep on truckin'."\nJackson's strength is motivated by not only his friends, but also strangers who have expressed their condolences. Jackson was near a computer when he heard about the bombing and immediately went to the Mike's Place Web site (www.mikesplacebar.com) and posted a message asking for anyone to respond with new developments. Thirty minutes later, Jackson checked the Web site to find more than 50 messages posted from all over the world.\n"There are a lot of cool cats in this world, we just need to take off these rims," he said while removing his sunglasses to demonstrate. "You just have to look around a little."
TO MY FRIENDS IN BLOOMINGTON\nAlong the Mediterranean coast in Tel Aviv, Israel lies a small blues club named Mike's Place.\nWhen first hearing about a blues club in the Middle East you may think to yourself: "You have got to be kidding me." But then after a few beers the idea begins to tickle your mind, releasing a burst of logic through your body. And then the epiphany comes: Well, to play the blues you got to be blue, and we know the Middle East gots da blues honey! And to feel the blues you've got to have soul my brothers and sisters, and that is all they've got left! So, this idea begins to make sense.\nMike's Place is an escape from the reality, in fact it becomes your life. But nobody is dancing tonight. No music, no soul, just the blues. I had the pleasure being apart of the wonderful world of Mike's Place. I spent five years eating, drinking, playing, working and even sometimes sleeping there. They are not my friends-they are my family. Tuesday night I lost three members of my family. Eight others are fighting for their lives.\nMadness is not an emotion to be practiced. Sadness and disappointment are. \nMike's Place taught me the ideologies of loving strangers. No one goes unnoticed, no one is forgotten. You can take my family but you can't take my love -- love for the future, and love for the people of all nationalities and religions. May love and peace engulf our minds, our hearts and our souls.\n-- Nate Jackson
