Where were we?

Colleen and Craig at the top of the World Trade Center in 1999.

Today, many people are marking 9-11 by asking others where they were when the planes struck the Twin Towers.

Where were we?

Colleen and I I had just picked up an Israeli diplomat’s son at the foreign ministry in Jerusalem and were driving to a baseball game at Gezer, when he received the news feed via a pager that each diplomat’s family members carry. During the game, the other various events of 9-11 rolled out. Although we were getting a news feed, the story was so bizarre that we couldn’t understand what was going on.

We returned to Jerusalem after the game and sat and watched the repeated video replays with a former NYC taxi driver (who was crying his eyes out). Like everyone else, we were stunned and simply couldn’t believe what we saw on the television screen.

On August 26, we had walked with the Israeli baseball team near the Twin Towers as we went to catch the Staten Island Ferry to see a Staten Island Yankee game.

After things were somewhat sorted out and flights were resumed at Newark Airport, Colleen and I were on one of the first international flights to arrive at Newark on the morning they re-opened. In fact, when we moved from international to domestic and had to go back through security, the gates were not yet open. We were among the first in line waiting to get through the security checkpoint, which was an absolute train wreck. We were shocked that the security agents, in spite of a lengthy shutdown, had no idea what they were doing. And it appears that not much has changed in these 13 years. Of course, our opinions have been shaped by many trips through Ben Gurion Airport.