| Campus Diaries |
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| Written by New Voices | |||||
| Sunday, 09 June 2002 | |||||
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September 11, 2001--Looking Back and Looking Forward Devastation and Destruction Nathan Gessner, New York University, Senior On September 11, a few minutes after the planes hit the World Trade Center, I grabbed my cameras and started running downtown from my NoHo apartment. I ended up just blocks away from the World Trade Center and had a clear view of both towers burning. The holes were huge, black, gaping, open. The sky glittered as pieces of metal on the outside of the buildings melted and flaked off, fluttering to the ground. Flames leapt out of the holes and licked the sides of the buildings; the smoke billowed out and wrapped around one tower, engulfing the other. I stood there for a while, taking pictures, and suddenly a woman behind me began to point at the tower, crying that she could see a man getting ready to jump. I watched that man jump to his death and several others after him. That was the most terrible thing I saw, and those images will forever be etched in my memory. Then the first tower collapsed. The top moved to the side, tilted, and tipped right at us, and fell in our direction, crumbling to the ground. We all watched it, gaping, insane, as the cloud rose and advanced on us. The sound was like a jet's roar, and we couldn't hear anything else for an eternity. It was so much like a movie, graphic and vivid--I heard myself screaming--or it could have been someone else. As the dust cloud rose slowly and started approaching, we realized it was advancing rapidly. We realized we could get sick if we breathed it, or get hit by debris, so we started running. Debris fell everywhere; I saw people get hit. I tried hiding behind a car, but that was stupid. The cloud engulfed everything. Then I skirted onto a side street, hoping the cloud would bypass it and leave it clear, but that was also folly. In a second the dust cloud enveloped me. It seemed so much like Hollywood's presentation of a nuclear winter. We were all sure there was some sort of non-conventional weaponry in the planes, that we were breathing fallout. As I started running, I became part of the massive stampede, but then thought: "If there's nuclear fallout, why do I bother running?" I stopped to help some people who were getting trampled by the crowds. It was terrible; we were all choking and I heard people vomit. I stopped in a few bars to watch the news, and that's how I saw the second tower collapse. Finally I got back to my apartment. Over the past weeks, I have continuously relived that morning in my head. Even after witnessing riots at the Western Wall in July, and the aftermath of the suicide attack at the Jerusalem Sbarro in August, I was thoroughly unprepared for the emotional devastation of the destruction of the World Trade Center. My only hope for a solution is that our civilization will eradicate those who would eradicate us. Impact Without Impact Sara Hirschhorn, Yale University, Junior Last week I went to give blood at the Yale-New Haven hospital, craving the prick of the needle. I have thought about it a lot. Because I don't feel anything at all. On the sunny morning of September 11, a student whizzed by me on a skateboard and I picked up from conversational snatches that the two colossal towers of the World Trade Center had imploded. I thought about it. And I didn't feel anything at all. Outside my dorm suite, I read the posting for the candlelight vigil to be held in the wake of the day's tragedy. I thought about it. And I didn't feel anything at all. Impact without impact. The more I thought about it, the more I could only think that while everyone had searched his or her heart the entire day to answer, "How could it possibly happen?" in my mind I demurred, "How could it not?" From spending my junior year of high school in Israel, I found these elusive connections only in my own memory. Perhaps it came from the sense of normalcy that evolves as one becomes accustomed to abnormality. The one that comes after lying face-down on the dusty floor of a classroom during a terrorist attack simulation, standing in line to purchase gas masks with my parents at a Tel Aviv department store, or writing papers in our apartment bomb shelter turned makeshift study. Then, I had felt the fear, paralysis, numbness, anger, violation, bewilderment. I had been terrified by terror. And it became routine. Many afternoons I would imagine the sound of the explosion that had once detonated the rebuilt beachfront café on my way to the city square. The plaza was evacuated every once in awhile, but we tried not to think about it. Here and there were scattered incidents, close calls from friends who thought it was only luck that they were spared. When the pizza place I frequented was blown up this summer while I was thousands of miles away, I thought so too. And now, with massive destruction of an unthinkable scale 100 miles from New Haven, all I can do is think. I went to offer my blood, a symbolic sacrifice, only to find the collection banks closed due to oversupply. Too much, someone had thought. Too much, I thought. But I'm still waiting to feel. A Prayer from Israel Marc N. Schlesinger, Yeshiva of the Fuschberg Center of Conservative Judaism, Jerusalem I was just sitting down for the beginning of my halakha (Jewish law) class when a fellow yeshiva student received a call on his cell phone that the World Trade Center and Pentagon had been hit by airplanes. I immediately called my parents, who both work in federal government buildings in D.C. to make sure they were safe. Then of course, the other tower was hit, and there were false reports of a bomb at the State Department. For the rest of the afternoon, I was unable to reach family and friends in the US. I could not fathom the fact that the US, the world's superpower, had been hit by a terrorist attack. At this point, I don't really know what to think. It's ironic to be here in Israel and to have to constantly worry about people's safety in the United States. After all this, however, learning at our yeshiva continues without hesitation. For the first few days after the attacks, we said psalms to try and help us cope with what happened. I'm not really sure how to recover from this except to pray that something like this never happens again, not only in the United States, but anywhere else in the world. American Flag in Hand Marita Gringaus, Arizona State University '01 The morning after September 11, Israelis came to the site of the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv for a candle-lighting ceremony to memorialize those killed in the US. While the memory of the young people whose lives had been taken at that site by a suicide bomber was still fresh in the minds of Israelis, they came with American flags in hand to show their sympathy and solidarity with the victims of a much-loved America. Later in the week, thousands of people showed up at a pro-American demonstration held at Rabin Square. I found myself surprised by the turn of events and grateful for the strong support I received while my family in New York was still trying to locate missing friends. I thought of all the pro-Israel rallies I had attended in the last couple of years in school, and for the first time truly appreciated the connection I and many others have to both Israel and America. As it turns out, Israel's solidarity with the US is not enough for terror groups that are engaged in jihad against Israeli civilians to be included in America's "War on Terrorism." Hezbollah and Hamas, groups that support terrorist acts against Israel, were not included in the list of groups whose funding the United States would take heightened steps to cut off. Despite this, Israel is prepared for imminent consequences of America's possible military action in the Middle East. Since the US is geographically far out of reach, Israelis, as the only representatives of democratic beliefs in the Middle East, are ready to take the heat, American flag in hand. Avoiding the Terror Tunnel Eli Pristoop, Washington University in St. Louis, Senior It is a shocking, but not a new thing, for me to see teary-eyed grievers huddled around a television and hysterical sprints to the telephone to call loved ones. Living in Israel last year, I got used to the sight of "macho" Israeli soldiers bawling and collapsing in the arms of their friends, but I never expected to see the hulking football players at my school doing the same. But I don't really feel, as many have said, that the world is a different place. For many in New York and all over the world who have lost loved ones, their lives will never be the same. As Shaul Mofaz, the commanding officer of the Israeli Defense Forces, said in a speech last year on Yom Hazikaron (Israel's Memorial Day) with regard to life after the death of a loved one, "Life does not go on. It stops and starts over again, totally differently." I think it is naïve, however, to believe that the entire world has suddenly changed. People have certainly been affected and inspired by the tragedy and events since September 11, but they are the same people. Problems that existed before September 11 still exist today. We can't let America's focus on "The War on Terrorism" blind us from existing problems, such as hunger, sexual assault, and inequalities in public education. There has been an amazing outpouring of compassion in America and throughout the world for the victims of the tragedies of September 11 and their families. Let us hope that the same outpouring of compassion will also be directed toward those whose victimization and need are unrelated to terrorism. Raise Your Voice for Peaceful Justice Joseph Berman, Wesleyan University, Sophomore Ari Brochin, Wesleyan University '01; Program Director, Wesleyan Havurah Eli Staub, Wesleyan University, Sophomore As Jews, we have a responsibility to choose what principles we want to guide our response to the overwhelming tragedy of September 11. Consider the verse from Deuteronomy: "Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof"--"Justice, justice shall you pursue." Why is it that 'justice' is written twice? Our tradition tells us that it is in order to teach us that we cannot pursue justice blindly; we must ensure that justice is served through just means. This perspective deeply informs our commitment to the "Peaceful Justice" movement. Taking place on over 150 college campuses today, it is a movement that seeks to put forward an alternative view to the reactionary support for violence that spews forth from the likes of the mainstream media and, sadly, most Americans. This is a very frightening time to be an American, or any citizen of the world. In addition to the new immediacy that the threat of terrorism now holds, the world seems to be spiraling toward renewed cycles of violence. As we write, American and British forces are attacking Taliban installations within major Afghan cities. "Collateral damage," the devastating loss of innocent life, will inevitably result. We have convinced ourselves that if we succeed in taking down the institutions of the Taliban or Bin Laden, their supporters would simply acquiesce and the threat to US security would dissipate. This is far from the truth. Our long-term safety can only be secured through a commitment to a justice founded on the principles of human rights and economic security for all people. If the US wishes to maintain the moral high ground in its actions in Afghanistan, we must transcend the legacies of the last half-century of American actions in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, and in Afghanistan itself. The logic of "realpolitik" and solipsistic pure power considerations can, carried to its logical conclusion, only provide philosophical cover for the further spilling of blood by both sides. Justice requires a new logic based not on an international ethos of each against all and alliances entered into strategically to serve perceived transient national interests, but rather based on a moral philosophy to which all can be held accountable. The rhetoric of Bush's newest assault is replete with references to universal values. Our military will bring "infinite justice" and "enduring freedom." But for justice to be truly infinite, it must govern the lives of all, and for freedom to endure, it must be embraced in a way that benefits not only US interests, but the interests of humanity. As bearers of a tradition deeply rooted in the principles of justice, holiness, and discourse, it is our responsibility to engage in dialogue with those in favor of military action as well as to organize on our campuses against irresponsible war and militarism. "If not me than who? If not now then when?" We at Wesleyan University, along with others across the country, have taken Hillel's ethical imperative to heart as we hold rallies, teach-ins, discussions, marches, and vigils to promote global peace through the pursuit of economic and social justice instead of through rash military violence. While we may convince ourselves that this war is being fought with the goal of increasing our own safety, we must recognize that we will never be truly safe until the world is governed by a more just order. Aside from the moral imperative to pursue justice justly, the text hints at these safety concerns. "Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you." Only when we serve justice through just means will we "thrive" in our land. Until then, our inheritance, the right of all people to pursue a life free from politically motivated violence, will be forever at risk.
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