TZFAT, Israel — A newly repaved crater in the main street of Tzfat. A tree split in half near a Haifa sidewalk. Shards of metal as a keepsake in a synagogue.

For recent New Jersey visitors to this town in northern Israel, these were the few bits of evidence of the war that ravaged northern Israel just three months ago.

In fact, most visitors didn’t even catch a glimpse of any of the sites of conflict, and some left disappointed that they didn’t get to “fully experience postwar Israel,” as one put it.

For most of the participants in the Zahav Statewide Mega-Mission, sponsored by the state Jewish federations in the Partnership 2000 consortium, the visit was testimony to the rebuilding effort that began the moment the war ended.

And while they noted that the physical damage of the war has been almost entirely fixed, the emotional damage inflicted upon northern Israelis remains an open wound.

Former Plainsboro resident Marc Kuchner, who came to Israel for the first time on the trip, said he was surprised by how safe he felt and that he didn’t see any signs of obvious danger or impact from the war.

“I don’t see any terrorists or bombs,” Kuchner told NJJN outside the artist colony in Tzfat. “Fortunately, the war ended before I came because I was uneasy about coming during a war. But I haven’t felt any more scared than I do in Manhattan.”

Kuchner, a 34-year-old former researcher at Princeton University who currently resides in Baltimore, said he came on the mission because he was inspired by his uncle, Robert Kuchner, who also participated in the mission.

The 77 mission participants heard horror stories from shopkeepers in Tzfat’s artist colony and from people they met on a visit to Haifa. An Ethiopian immigrant in Afula told them children who live in her neighborhood are frightened by school bells because they sound too much like the sirens that warned of impending rockets.

Before traveling north to Afula, Tzfat, and Haifa, the mission went to Tel Aviv and Kibbutz Ein Gedi, which is part of the Tamar Regional Council, the United Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks’ sister community in the Jewish Agency’s Partnership 2000 program.

In Ein Gedi, the participants attended a celebration in honor of the anniversaries of the partnership and the founding of the Dead Sea-area kibbutz.

Marc Kuchner said one of the highlights of the trip for him was floating in the Dead Sea at Ein Gedi. He said he was surprised that so many famous places he had heard about his entire life were so close to each other in Israel.

The mission visited Afula’s Gvanim Elementary School, where a storage room was converted to a high-tech study center and play-room. Gideon Herscher of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee contrasted the sounds of schoolchildren during this mission to the silence in the empty school during the war.

A local resident, Yafit, described her difficult journey from Ethiopia to Israel via Sudan in 1979 at age seven. She said her family had always dreamed about coming to Jerusalem, where her father had told her there was no war or sickness.

At the school, the group observed language workshops with children whose families had immigrated from Ethiopia, Morocco, and the former Soviet Union. The children drew a “hamsa” (good-luck charm or amulet) for their visitors from New Jersey.

On the last day of their trip, on a visit to Hadassah Ein-Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem, the group surveyed another program that helps children. Kav-Or is a long-distance learning program designed to assist children who miss school due to illness and help them communicate with peers who have had the same experiences.

Rafael Yudasin, the head of Hadassah’s pediatric unit, said that through the program, children and parents learn about medical procedures the youngsters are facing so they will know what to expect. UNESCO has endorsed the program, which has been presented in Tunisia and Qatar.

One of the few first-time visitors to Israel on the mission was Dr. Herman Saatkamp, president of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Pomona. A resident of Galloway (near Atlantic City), Saatkamp, who is not Jewish, became involved in federation life when he began the nation’s first master’s degree program in Holocaust studies.

Saatkamp said he was very impressed by the sites of Jerusalem, the diversity of the Jewish faith, and the sense of community among Israelis. He said he was not concerned about the security situation and that he trusted the mission organizers would only take him where he would be safe.

“It was also the first time I could see what it would be like to live in Israel under the constant threat of attacks, coupled with the constant attempt to live peacefully despite the conflict,” Saatkamp said.

“As an outsider, you get a different experience being here than from the newspapers, which make Israel look unsafe, divided, and lacking direction. Only by coming here can you see that Israel is not fractured. It’s whole and it’s a family.”

Saatkamp said he was also inspired by seeing the camaraderie of the mission participants. He took part in singing with the group at a Shabbat dinner, and said he was glad that his first trip to Israel was on a mission.

For his part, Marc Kuchner said he intended to encourage his family and friends in the Princeton Mercer Bucks area — Jews and non-Jews — to come to Israel.

“Every American has an opinion on Israel,” Kuchner said. “There are thousands of years of secular and religious culture here. It’s such a prominent news item. You have to come and see what the fuss is all about.”