by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
For just about everyone December is always a special month. There’s Christmas and Chanukah and Kwanzaa. There’s Al Hijra, the Muslim New Year and Canadians celebrate Boxing Day. In Mexico, Las Posadas is an annual celebration as is Santa Lucia Day in Sweden.
For one Downtown businessman, December holds an especially important date even though the only calendar it’s on is his. That’s Dec. 2, the day in 1947 that Jimmy Batteh, owner of the Bay Street Cafe, arrived in America.
His father, John Joseph Batteh, came to the United States in 1909 at age 13 when the Turks ruled Palestine. He went to work for Uncle Sam in 1918.
“My father joined the U.S. Army so his children would be American citizens,” said Batteh.
When he retired from the service in 1946 the elder Batteh went back to Palestine with thoughts of a quiet retirement in the family’s hometown of Ramallah. World politics got in the way, however.
“A good friend of my father who was high up in the English government asked him why he came back to Ramallah. When he found out my father had come back to retire, his friend told him ‘If you knew what I know, you would get out of here as soon as you can,” said Batteh.
What the friend knew was that a civil war was about to break out, followed by an outright war between the the State of Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Upon arriving in America, the family settled in Jacksonville and opened a grocery store at the corner of 10th and Hubbard streets. That began a long succession of small businesses including grocery stores, sandwich shops and even a dry cleaning shop.
Coming to America also began years of trying to find a doctor who might be able to help Batteh regain his eyesight. He contracted measles as a child which scarred his retinas and has since been visually impaired.
“I went to many doctors for many years,” he recalled. “Finally in 1991 a doctor told me to stop spending money on my eyes because there was no cure.”
Batteh closed his sandwich shop in San Marco, moved Downtown and opened Bay Street Cafe in 1989. He has since been a neighborhood fixture with his signature blue cap and sweater. He knows his regular customers by the sound of their voices and is always ready with a joke or some conversation about politics or global financial matters.
Batteh, who gets out of bed each day at 3 a.m. in order to have breakfast ready by 6 a.m., said he’s still doing it after 32 years in the breakfast and lunch business because, “I love what I do and I love the people.”
He also has great affection for his adopted country and commented, “There was only one perfect thing in the world and they killed Him. America isn’t perfect but it’s the greatest place in the world.”
Batteh’s father, John Joseph, was a sharpshooter in the U.S. Army during World War I.
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