A very Little Israel grows in the East Village.

Just about every ethnic group, from Italians on Mulberry to Pakistanis in Midwood, have a chunk of New York they can call home. Now Israelis have theirs.

St. Marks Place, with nearly a dozen Israeli-owned restaurants, boutiques, and bars gradually opening over the last two decades, has occasionally been dubbed New York’s “Little Israel” in the past.

But it was not until the Holy Land Market and a Tel Aviv-style hummus haunt opened within weeks of each other this summer in the East Village that young Israelis began to widely claim that block of the Big Apple as their own.

“We should rename St. Marks Place Hertzl Street,” said Uri Shankin, a 29-year-old musician, after filling up at Hummus Place, which he declared as good as in Israel.

“It’s like a street in Jerusalem,” said Rotem Shamir, a 27-year-old filmmaker and bartender who has lived in the neighborhood for five years. “People are cheering up. It’s called nostalgia.”

Mr. Shamir, who currently tends bar at Cafe Mogador and previously at 7A, two of the first Israeli-owned establishments in the area, said he has watched the neighborhood transform. “They were pioneers,” he said of the owners of Cafe Mogador, who opened the Moroccan-Israeli restaurant 20 years ago when the neighborhood was among the worst in the city and few Israelis emigrated. “Now,” he said, “people open restaurants because this has become known as an Israeli area.”

In the last decade, the Israeli community in the New York area has grown by about 10,000 to more than 30,000 adults, according to the 2002 Jewish Community Study of New York, by UJA-Federation of New York.

For Israelis in their 20s and 30s, particularly artists and students, the East Village has emerged as a location of choice, particularly the stretch of St. Marks between 1st Street and Avenue A.

Last Thursday night, Hebrew dominated at Hummus Place, a small restaurant modeled on the traditional Israeli spots where the chickpea dip is the only item on the menu. At one table Israeli movers, heads shaved and sunglasses pushed back, shoveled down hot pitas between shifts. Another small table was packed with a diverse group of artists and writers debating in rapid-fire Hebrew whether Prime Minister Sharon would really pull out of Gaza.

Customers frequently darted from the Hummus Place to the Holy Land Market across the street. Entering the blue-and-white painted door, their eyes would light up: It’s as if an Israeli market, down to deodorant, mops, and potato pastries flown in from Tel Aviv, has been transplanted to the East Village.

A woman from the Upper East Side in a flowing purple shirt, dark makeup, and giant beaded silver earrings rushed in with a wide grin and in a flurry started grabbing chocolate covered caramel waffles, Bazooka gum, and moisturizer.

“I’m hearing about this store at least once a week,” she said as she exclaimed, “Krembo!” and grabbed a giant treat that resembles a chocolate covered marshmallow.

Eran Hileli, a hyper 32-year-old who gets by on just a few hours of sleep, created the Holy Land Market four months ago out of homesickness. After travels to the Far East, a stint at Noah’s Ark movers, and a few years running a trance music shop, he was faced with a choice: return to Israel or bring the flavors to New York. He chose the latter.

Greeting each of the mostly Israeli customers as a long-lost friend, Mr. Hileli is not surprised by how fast the word has spread. “It’s not a huge community and Israelis can spread a rumor in a minute,” he said. And he has kept the nostalgia factor high, renting the movies and idealistic songs that the young Israelis, most of whom he said are in their early 30s, listened to growing up.

A 33-year-old Jerusalem native stopped in and asked his hours. Mr. Hileli launched into a polemic about how he wanted to keep the Kosher shop closed for the Jewish Sabbath, like almost all shops in Israel outside Tel Aviv, but he has quickly learned all of the Israelis in the neighborhood go out on Friday nights. For the first time, last Saturday, he kept the store open.

“They’re totally not religious,” Mr. Hileli said, of his young, secular Israeli customers. “First we called this Little Israel, but to Israelis it’s completely Shenkin,” he continued, referring to a fashionable Tel Aviv street.

After Mr. Hileli closed up shop at midnight, he darted across the street to pick up some hummus. There, the 25-year-old manager, a recent kibbutz transplant, expertly dribbled cumin and olive oil on a pot of slow-cooked chickpeas.

Yael Erel, an architect who lives in the Lower East Side, hurried in to get a late-night dinner. She sat alone at a table but in a casual Hebrew Mr. Hileli launched into a conversation with her and other late-night customer, a mover and musician, about how Israeli television has reported on Mr. Arafat’s demise.

“It’s like this new Israeli neighborhood,” said Ms. Erel as she slopped her hummus. “It’s funny being here, it’s nice…it’s nostalgia and it’s feeling homesick and wanting to connect through the food,” continued Ms. Erel, who has lived in New York for six years now, adding, “Everyone misses home.”