Where Were You on 9/11?

Brocha Chana Metzger, Chabad Lubavitch of Midtown Manhattan

It was to have been the first day of school for my oldest child. I was up early to prepare her for orientation. The radio was on. I heard about the first tower being hit. When the second tower was hit I realized it was no accident.

Frightened, seven months pregnant and alone with my toddler, I frantically tried to reach my husband at his Chabad of Midtown office. He finally picked up the phone. Until I had reached him he had no inkling of the attacks. He had been praying the Shacharit services with the morning minyan! He raced out of the Chabad House to look down Fifth Avenue just as the first tower fell in a plume of smoke.

All that day I saw people covered in thick layers of white ash stream past our apartment building, heading in vain to catch trains at Grand Central Terminal. One of our neighbors returned home from her ground zero job – a white plaster statue come to life. She had made it out.

In the week that followed, we were evacuated twice due to our proximity to the Empire State Building. Would it be next? I vividly recall racing up Park Avenue on foot with a stroller to points north – away from the 34th Street landmark – the scent of smoke, fire and destruction everywhere. I heard that my former boss, Mr. Abe Ilowitz A”H perished in the towers. Too many neshamos snuffed out.

Countless people, many claiming to be “secular” or “unaffiliated”, showed up at our Chabad House to pray. Survivors recited the “Hagomel” prayer. For a few weeks all New Yorkers were one big family. And the words on everyone’s lips seemed to include “G-d”.

With all air travel down, tens of thousands of visitors, tourists and business people were stranded in Manhattan for over a week. Chabad of Midtown hosted hundreds for services, shabbat meals and more. A delegation of ten Israeli Knesset members was in D.C. on 9/11 researching American Laws as part of the Israeli Constitutional Committee. Unable to fly out, they arrived in Manhattan and were hosted at a special reception at our Fifth Avenue Chabad House on Thursday night September 13th 2001. The distinguished visitors included Knesset members Maxim Levy A”H, Michael Eitan, and “Cheetah” who blew the shofar for the assembly.

—

Alan N. Markowitz, NYC

I was in Rabbi Metzger’s office that morning when he told me that he just got off of the phone with you and you told him about the first attack. I then left Chabad House and when I got downstairs to Fifth Avenue, I learned that a second plane had struck so I went back upstairs to immediately tell your husband. Then we went downstairs.

As an aside, the next day (I think it was the next day and not the same day), the building’s LL decided to completely close down 509 [Fifth Avenue] for security purposes. Well, Rabbi Metzger could have blown a gasket with anger, but we offered up the Mincha service that day, right there, on the sidewalk in front of the 509 doorway. I told the security guard to get Rabbi Goldstein to come downstairs – When he did, I told him to run back up and get the shofar. He handed the shofar to us thru the door and I blew it for all of Fifth Avenue to hear !!!!