OAKLAND — Thursday evening Jewish congregations from all sects and cities across the Bay Area participated in "Coming together for Israel" at Beth El in Berkeley.

White and blue balloons graced doorways and prepubescent students from Tehiyah Day School sang to the pulse of a conga drum. Israel Independence Day appears to be a birthday party by all counts, down to the chocolate cake and dog-shaped balloons.

Not far away, native Palestinian Darwish Addassi's home in Walnut Creek told quite a different story. Coverage of protests in the Gaza Strip blinked mutely in the background on his television and there was no celebration to speak of.

He recounted the events of that day in 1948, what Israeli's call Hakhrazat HaAtzma'ut, the Israeli Declaration of Independence, and Palestinians call the "Al-Nakba," the catastrophe.

Sixty years ago on May 14, Israel was declared a state, giving the Jews a home and refuge while expelling thousands of Palestinians from their homeland. Addassi was 14 when the Israeli military captured the males on their orange farm and sent them to a military-run prison, where he spent nine months. After he was released, he was reunited with the rest of his family, which that had taken the "Death Walk" of 15 miles to the Jordanian border.

"They took 3,000 to 4,000 people (to the prison)," he said. "We had to sleep like sardines, one sleeps on his back, the other on his side. It was a concentration camp,

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it was a prison."

Chana Andler, assistant executive director of the East Bay Jewish Community Center in Berkeley, saw the situation very differently.

"Today is not political, this is just a birthday party. It is our celebration as much as it is Israel's celebration" she said.

Outside the gates of Beth El, more than a handful of protesters held signs that urged people not to celebrate.

"What is happening is a huge historical crime," protester Henry Noor said. "As a Jew I think that people have the moral obligation to try and speak out against it."

Andler said, "It's amazing to think about 60 years for us as community. It's an opportunity to come together."

Addassi disagreed. "I do not celebrate, because this day does not mean much to me."

Some Jewish congregations will hold Shabbat festivities Saturday to mark the holiday. Palestinians and their supporters will join together from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco.