ALTHOUGH it was in use from 1497 to 1943, the Jewish cemetery in Bitola, Macedonia’s second city, had long been forgotten. No longer. Not only is the site now being restored and a new memorial built, but on March 11th a couple of thousand people, including Macedonian and Israeli ministers, marched through town to pay homage to the Macedonian Jews who were rounded up exactly 75 years earlier and sent to the death camp at Treblinka. At the same time Israeli developers held a “hackathon”, dreaming up ideas for digital memorials with Macedonian fellow geeks. It is typical of the way Israelis are quietly discovering the western Balkans.

Bitola’s Jewish cemetery is on a steep hill, and over time its flat tombs became covered by soil. In the past few years 4,300 have been excavated; there could be as many as 10,000. Jews remember Bitola by its Ottoman name of Monastir, but most people in Bitola have forgotten that their down-at-heel town was once a thriving and prosperous place for Jews, Christians and Muslims. “I am trying to use our past,” says Maria Geras Dochovska, co-ordinator of the cemetery project. Bitola has been “dying for 100 years”. If what she is doing brings interest and investment to the town, she says, “then maybe our young will have a chance to be connected to the world.” And perhaps they will stay, rather than emigrate as so many Macedonians are doing. She may be right. Winners of the hackathon will visit Israel and meet people from its thriving tech sector.

In the past decade, whatever most outsiders—the Turks say, or the Russians—do in the region has been accompanied by media fanfare and raucous debate about what they are really up to. Israel’s interest, apart from cultivating friendly countries, is more low-key. The Bitola event went unnoticed in the outside world. Even so, according to the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, Israelis have invested or committed almost €1.8bn in Serbia since 2000. Their political consultants are often hired to advise the region’s parties during elections.

In Macedonia an Israeli company now trains military helicopter pilots. This year Israel hopes to clinch a deal to sell F-16 fighter jets to Croatia. In 2016 intelligence co-operation thwarted an attack on an Israel-Albania football match. Balkan countries almost certainly receive Israeli intelligence on their jihadists returning from Syria. The number of Israelis coming to the region, mostly for long weekends in Belgrade, was up by 171% last year compared with 2016, in part because they no longer feel comfortable in Turkey.

The leaders of Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Albania have all been on official visits to Israel. Kosovo’s leaders have been lobbying Israel to recognise it. According to Eliezer Papo of Ben Gurion University, academic co-operation, which used to be “non-existent” has exploded. Politically, he says, many western Balkan leaders think Israel is a place to emulate. They consider their countries to be like Israel: surrounded by enemies, but determined to prosper anyway. They mostly pay lip service to the Palestinian cause, but often forget it. Israel and (mostly Muslim) Albania are “natural allies” in the fight against violent extremism, said Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, on March 4th. From cyber-security to water technology, says Mr Papo, “everyone thinks that there is a lot to gain.” But no one wants to make a big fuss about it.