Comments on: September 11: Eleven Years On

By: olonamus

olonamus — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:43:47 +0000

I was teaching a high school English class in Brooklyn from which the Twin Towers were clearly in view. Teaching was out of the question. The sound of emergency sirens was constant. Relieved parents began picking up their children. I wondered where I’d be spending the night. Then the subway resumed operation. There was a subdued quiet in the subway car unlike any regular work day.

By: anneinpt

anneinpt — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:06:10 +0000

I was at home in Petach Tikva, getting ready to take my daughter to an after school class. My mother called me and said “turn on the radio, a plane has crashed into the Twin Towers’. I thought “stupid pilot. How can you miss the Towers?”. I turned on the TV to see if there was anything on the news and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the second plane hit the Towers. I knew immediately that this was no accident, and no pilot error.

Meanwhile my husband was flying from Switzerland to London to catch an El Al plane home. I had several heart-stopping hours until he could make contact. He was grounded for 24 hours, but eventually the UK authorities allowed only El Al to fly (kudos to El Al’s security) and he got back in time for Rosh Hashana.

I work in an accountant’s office and we had many colleagues at Kantor Fitzgerald who lost, I think, 700 workers on 9/11 in their offices in the Twin Towers. I can still picture my boss saying “the whole company is gone” over and over in utter shock.

By: tom

tom — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 09:48:50 +0000

I was in New Zealand. We took a cab around 1:30 a.m. to our hostel and the driver said “they bombed the Twin Towers”. I thought “no big deal, this has happened before”. (I was thinking about Oklahoma or that one time a bomb went off in the ground floor, I think)
The next morning we were in a shopping center and in the food court all the TVs were on CNN or something. All the broadcast looked like the end of the world, just rubble and smoke. I still have this image of people eating and literally everyone was staring at the screens. Surreal.
I had relatives visiting NYC at that time and they actually wanted to have lunch that day on the top floor of one of the Towers.
Couldn’t get in touch with them on the phone for at least a week, so e-mail worked best.

What I still don’t get is how there are still so many questions open about how the Towers collapsed, Building 7 which was completely fine, how there was no rubble in the Pentagon attack and in Pennsylvania from the planes themselves and the passengers, how all the surveillance camera tapes were collected around the pentagon, etc, etc. I just don’t understand how this happened…(I know the official story, but that is too simple)

I was working on a project in connection with Akamai and I stumbled upon this movie:
An Israeli Hero Of Flight 11 – On Sept. 11, 2001
I cried quite a bit after watching this.

By: tom

tom — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 09:36:29 +0000

first I thought “this is wayyyy tooo long”, but I read it…
Very sad indeed.

Wishing you all the best and a Shana Tova with no stress!

By: MKI

MKI — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:38:20 +0000

I arrived to my inlaws 5 mins earlier in Jerusalem,saw the broadcast thought it surreal and recollected the 24 hours I spent in Manhattan a few years earlier with my mums cousin driving through down town in a yellow cab.
thankfully my baby son was around to hug.I will never be complacent and will never forget my American Uncle whom defended peace and democracies by serving in the US Navy as a commander in WWI & II in China and retired to Australia.

By: MKI

MKI — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:32:46 +0000

yes,writing is therapeutic and living in Israel enables one to come to terms in time. The thing is in Israel others are with you in your sorrow and you are not complacent or silent!

By: walt kovacs

walt kovacs — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 01:09:09 +0000

i was in bed in cali

bad jew that i am, overslept instead of being at slichos

when i got up at 730, it was from my phone ringing…boss calling me to turn on tv…the world had totally changed

he was right…we are not the better for it

By: Inessa

Inessa — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:47:25 +0000

I was home, watching tv at night. My 16 month old son was half asleep in my lap, after putting up the usual tantrum to be put in his cot. My husband was out, playing indoor soccer. The program I was watching was interrupted with images of the first tower. What a horrible accident, I thought. Then the second tower. The news hadn’t said anything about terror attacks, just that another plane crashed. I phoned my husband on his mobile, and told him about the two planes. There was a long pause and then he said “they worked out how to hit the States. The intifada has gone to the States”.

By: juvanya

juvanya — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:51:35 +0000

I was in 6th grade. It was still the first days. We went thru our normal day and went outside for science lab. Then we came back for social studies the last period. The teacher told us that there had been an announcement that there was a telecommunications and travel disruption in NYC and some peoples parents may not be in contact or home for awhile. Later, we would learn that “for awhile” meant forever for some kids.

We went home on the bus as normal and when I got off at the corner, a house down from mine, my mom was either there or just outside our house, crying out the news to us who got off. I dont remember my reaction, but I remember watching the coverage the whole day. I was too young and distant to have any emotions about it other than shock.

By: juvanya

juvanya — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:40:16 +0000

Not long after I had a conversation with someone in Israel whose job was to work out how to destroy things. How many bombs would it take to destroy any given target. He told me, following the attack, they’d tried to work out if they had anything conventional in the arsenal that would have done what those two planes did. The answer is no.

Thank you.