Customers used to crowd the Cardo Gallery art studio in Jerusalem until violence erupted two years ago and drove tourists away.

Now the 23-year-old gallery remains empty most days, barely holding onto existence as merchants around it shut their stores for good.

"It used to be a place full of life," said Yaron Shrem, whose family owns the gallery. "People used to fill the streets. Now, it's empty. It's like a graveyard."

With little hope of sales picking up soon in their homeland, Shrem and other Israeli business owners are bringing their wares to America.

They're selling paintings, books, music, food, jewelry, crafts and glassware from business expos set up by fellow Jews living in major cities throughout the United States.

The Beth Tfiloh synagogue in Pikesville, in conjunction with several Baltimore-area Jewish organizations, is playing host to one such fair beginning at 8 o'clock tonight, after the Sabbath, and all day tomorrow.

"A lot of people are afraid to come to Israel and therefore the economy is suffering," said Beth Tfiloh Rabbi Gershun Sonnenschein. "If we're not going to go there, let's bring them here."

For some business owners, the expos have been the only way they have been able to survive.

Shrem, 23, has been to expos in Ohio and New York, and is headed to one in Chicago next week. He said he has picked up many new customers but that it's not the same running an art gallery from a small booth. He sells his father's paintings and art by recent Russian immigrants who have moved to Israel.

"It's not the same feeling," he said. "We're making enough to live until things get better in Israel."

Yesterday, 46 other merchants joined Shrem in setting up booths to prepare for this weekend's event.

Most pay their own airfare, which can be as much as $3,000, and have their goods shipped in. The booth space is free, and local families usually offer the business owners a place to stay.

Organizers of the expo said Israel lost $1.7 billion in tourist revenue from 2000 to 2001. About 1.2 million tourists visited Israel last year, 54 percent fewer than the year before.

The drop in visitors affects not only the major cities, but also the smaller towns.

Nir Nitzan was a tour guide in Israel until visitors stopped coming. Now he comes to America to sell scarves, paintings, jewelry and other goods made by Israeli artists. Many of them live in the artist colony of Tzfat and depend on tourism.

Nitzan takes a 25 percent commission and gives the artists the balance.

He said he has sold more than $60,000 worth of goods in America.

Nimrod Lasman owns Galilee International Trade, a company he runs from his small village of Yokneam in northern Israel. He sells children's clothes made from organic cotton and natural soaps.

Lasman decided to bring his business to America when he found himself barely able to feed his wife and two daughters. He said sales have picked up 50 to 60 percent since he started attending expos and that he's picked up some export business, too.

"This has helped by opening up a new market to me," he said.