On the morning of September 11, 2001, the world permanently changed. First at 8:46 a.m., and then at 9:03 a.m., two hijacked airplanes crashed separately into each of the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center, ultimately destroying both buildings and causing massive loss of life. Two other planes were simultaneously hijacked, one hitting the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and one – flying toward Washington and possibly headed for the White House – crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, after its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers. It was quickly established that the surprise attacks were planned and coordinated by the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda, headed by Osama Bin Laden.
The attacks killed more than 3,000 people and injured over 6,000 others. They also caused at least $10 billion in property and infrastructure damage and $3 trillion in total costs. And, naturally, they sent New York City – and the entire country – into complete shock, grief, and numbing disbelief.
The Miraculous Escape
A number of Jewish residents living in the greater Queens area still have vivid memories of that horrific day. Perhaps the most dramatic case is that of Ari Schonbrun, who worked at the Cantor Fitzgerald firm at the World Trade Center, where nearly every employee was killed in the attack. Ari says it is a true miracle that he is alive today. “I was late getting to work that day because I was helping one of my children for 20 minutes with a Scholastic book order that had gotten delayed,” he explained to the Queens Jewish Link. “I arrived at the WTC at 8:40 a.m. and took the express elevator to the 78th floor. I was about to switch to another elevator to go to the 101st floor, when the first plane hit the building. I then met my co-worker, Virginia DiChiara, who was getting off the elevator. Its cable had snapped and jet fuel came down, creating a wall of fire. She jumped through it, incurring third-degree burns on her body.”
Ari helped Virginia walk down all 78 flights of stairs and placed her in an ambulance. He was about to leave when she insisted that he come together with her, so he got in and the ambulance sped away. At that moment, the building collapsed completely. “If I would not have gone with her, I would be dead today,” Ari says plainly. “The simple truth is that we each saved the other one’s life that day.”
It’s quite interesting to note that Virginia had always been very antagonistic toward Ari at the office, even once attempting to have him fired. But, he says, “as a frum Jew, I had to save her life. And that act ended up saving mine too.” Those events deeply affected Ari – while he was always Orthodox, he since became much more devoted to his religious behavior and practice throughout each day. And, he notes, after not having a child for many years, his wife gave birth two years later, which the couple never expected. “I saw miracles on September 11, and I have seen miracles in my life since then,” Ari Schonbrun declares.
The Disaster Mental Health Counselor
Kew Gardens Hills resident Caroline Schumsky (who writes the “Hooked on Healing” column for the Queens Jewish Link) is a Disaster Mental Health Counselor for New York City, and worked as a guidance counselor at the devastated WTC site for many months. Caroline used her expert psychological training to counsel and try to comfort family members of the attack’s victims. She also counseled firefighters, police officers, and members of the construction crew who were working to clear the site, all of whom had to work amidst burning debris and – for a while – under the pressure of searching for bodies. “I worked down at the pit, which was a big hole that had been the footprint of one of the buildings,” Caroline explained. “There was always smoke coming out of it. The whole experience was very harrowing – I worked late at night, and there were a number of bomb scares in the first months after the attacks.”
According to Caroline, different types of people affected by the event had to be spoken to and handled in different ways, depending on their individual situation. While the average firefighter had a tough attitude and had to be drawn out so they could speak more emotionally, there were victims’ family members who were naturally quite distraught and they required a more direct approach. She remembers such poignant cases as a pregnant woman who was searching for her (most likely deceased) husband, and a man who had just started working at the WTC that very day. A highlight of her work was the large tent that was used as a respite center, where responders and others involved would play games such as sports trivia and share time with comfort dogs that had been specially brought in.
“I really felt honored to do this type of work,” Caroline emphasized. “It was a tremendous privilege to be able to help out. It was also quite heartwarming to meet people at the site who had come from other states to provide assistance. In general, I tried to be as uplifting as possible, given the circumstances.”
The One Who Worked There Just a Day Earlier
Sarah Friedman Hoffman, who lived in Brooklyn at the time and now resides in Kew Gardens Hills, had an extremely unique personal experience related to 9/11, as she had just begun working at the World Trade Center the day before. She related her story to the Queens Jewish Link in her very own words, as follows.
“I had just graduated college and was hired by Lehman Brothers to be an Information Technology Analyst (a fancy title for a computer programmer). Our training program started on September 10, 2001, in 1 World Trade Center. At the end of the day they told us that they decided to move the training program to Jersey City. Most of us started complaining quietly to each other. How would we get there? (This was before Google Maps.) How long would this commute take? How early would we need to wake up to make sure we got there on time?
“On the morning of 9/11 I was in the World Trade Center, taking the PATH train to get to New Jersey, reading a novel – blissfully unaware that this would be my last time in the building and that day would be a day I would never forget.
“It was during the beginning of training that we heard people shouting. Someone had looked out the window and saw smoke coming from the World Trade Center, across the river. We were all evacuated. Someone speculated that terrorists were bombing financial buildings, but we really had no idea what was going on. As we were standing outside, we watched the second building that was hit by a plane go down.
This was before everyone had cell phones, and I certainly didn’t have one. I thought I had told my parents the night before that I wouldn’t be at the World Trade Center that day, but wasn’t sure that they would remember. I wanted to make sure they knew I was okay. I borrowed someone’s cell phone, and it took a long time before I could get a connection. It was while I was on the phone with my mother that the second building went down. I shouted to her, “It’s not there anymore! It’s not there anymore!” My mother didn’t believe me until she turned on the TV at home, which confirmed what I was seeing.
“Although my parents knew I was safe, many concerned relatives called them that day, one of them my brother-in-law. The night before, I had been out on a date with someone my brother-in-law went to school with. On the morning of September 11, when my brother-in-law asked him how the date went, he said, “Good, but she works in the World Trade Center.” My brother-in-law frantically called my parents to make sure I was okay. They were able to tell him that I was in New Jersey, safe from all that was going on in Lower Manhattan.
I had no way to get back to my home in Brooklyn. A few of us walked to a coworker’s home in Hoboken, thinking we’d need to stay the night. I bought a bag of pita and some other kosher food I found at a local grocery store so I would have enough food to get me through the next day or so. At my coworker’s house, we were glued to the TV, watching in horror what was going on. That evening, the PATH train started running to Manhattan again, and one train, the F train, was going to Brooklyn, so I was able to make it back home. I was thankful that I didn’t need to spend the night with so many coworkers in a tiny apartment.
“It was a crazy time. My workplace was gone and I didn’t have a job for a while after that. One person from Lehman Brothers didn’t survive the attack, but thankfully everyone else did. Eventually, Lehman Brothers moved its offices into a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, and my new job was tech support, making sure all the investment bankers’ computers and printers worked properly. A few months later I was finally able to start the programming job for which I was hired.
“How very fortunate I feel when I think that I was in the World Trade Center on the last normal day of its existence, September 10, 2001. My coworkers and I reminisced about how upset we were initially that our training program was moved to New Jersey and how grateful we were later. Sadly, many others weren’t that fortunate, and I will never forget them or that day.”
The Inspirational Speaker
While not personally involved in the attacks, famed lecturer and writer – and Kew Gardens resident – Rabbi Paysach Krohn has an important related story to tell. After performing a bris that morning, he was going to fly to Toronto when his wife called and said that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center, generating tremendous confusion and fright everywhere. The principal of Shevach High School for Girls in Kew Gardens Hills, Mrs. Reifer, immediately called Rabbi Krohn and asked him to speak to the student body the next day, to somehow reassure them. Instead of recalling his own speech, he remains impressed to this day by what the principal said in her introduction of him.
“She noted that at the end of Aleinu, which concludes our daily prayers, we say the p’sukim starting with the words ‘Al tirah mipachad pisom,’” Rabbi Krohn relates. “The phrases are saying, ‘Don’t be afraid of sudden terror and calamity from wicked people when it comes…’ We say to the nations, ‘Your plans will be annulled because Hashem is with us.’ That message of ultimate trust in Hashem has changed me to this day. I publicize it in many of my speeches, and I know that there are now numerous people who make sure to say these p’sukim after Aleinu, even though they never said them before.”
The Child’s Perspective
The following letter from a reader named Jeremy Rosenberg, who was just a young boy at the time, is a good example of a child’s simple perspective of such a calamitous event. Jeremy lived in Kew Gardens during 9/11, and is a current resident of Sunnyside.
“Though I was just in fourth grade at P.S. 99 in Kew Gardens, and 9 years old, I remember the day vividly. My first memory of the day was how beautiful it was outside. I arrived at school that day, irritated that I had to spend a gorgeous, summer-like day at school. As a third-year law student now, I can assure you –nothing has changed in that regard!
I was the head of the student-led morning announcement crew. That day, we had a normal announcement schedule, and I was in class around 8:30 a.m. or so. About 45 minutes later, my classmates and I were hard at work writing journal entries. But something odd was happening around me. I heard a continuous flow of sirens racing down Queens Boulevard. Our school was located in a busy part of the neighborhood, just near Queens Blvd. I was used to sirens. But this was different. The flow of sirens did not stop. I thought, at first, that there was a terrible fire in the neighborhood. I thought of my apartment, on Lefferts Boulevard, and my favorite eateries in the community. I hoped that nothing terrible had happened.
About a half an hour later, one by one, students were getting pulled out of class and picked up by their parents. Four students, five students, six students. I thought this was odd. Our class was then brought upstairs for an unscheduled class assembly in the window-less drama room. Teachers huddled outside the room. Something was wrong. I knew it then.
Suddenly, a school aide came to classroom. “Jeremy Rosenberg, your mom is here to pick you up!” Me, I thought. My parents never pulled me out of school. I was afraid someone in my family had gotten hurt. As we walked down to the school entrance where I would be signed out, I saw a line of parents picking up students. I turned around and saw my favorite teacher, Roberta Nelson, and asked her what had happened. “The World Trade Center was bombed,” she said.
I walked to my mom, kind of stunned. I asked her if we could go to the Twin Towers observation deck when the situation got better. I then turned on the TV and saw footage of the towers collapsing. I had a hunch things would never be the same again.”
Fifteen years later, we all know that we will never forget the life-changing events of September 11, 2001.
The post In Their Own Words: 15 Years Later, Jewish Residents Of Queens & Five Towns Share Their 9/11 Stories appeared first on Queens Jewish Link.