Sept. 11: One Year Later Jewish Students Across the Country Remember Sept. 11, Victims of Terror

For Jewish students on college campuses around the country, the reminders of that horrific day late last summer can be small and unexpected.

“The first time that I saw the date was when I bought my textbooks,” said Will Silberman, a sophomore at the University of Illinois. “The last day for complete refunds was Sept. 11. I stood there shocked for a second.”

On a day that would teem with emotion, Silberman and other students in Champaign awoke to picturesque skies and cool breezes on the first anniversary of last September’s terrorist attacks.

For the larger Jewish community, Sept. 11, 2002, was an opportunity to “focus on the many victims of terror, both American and Israeli,” according to Sharon Safra, assistant Hillel director at the University of Maryland at College Park.

The Hillel was planning a brief service for that evening.

“I think that it’s a day for communal gathering,” Safra said.

At Illinois’ Hillel, nearly 100 Jewish students attended an evening memorial service for victims of terror, which featured a candlelighting in memory of those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center and in recent terrorist attacks in Israel.

“It’s important that you talk, it’s important that you think about it, to be aware and to not forget those who have fallen,” said Jeremy Fine, a junior at the university and one of the event’s coordinators.

“Everyone can relate” at an event such as this, he said.

Earlier in the day, a diverse body of students, many carrying cameras or notebooks, gathered on the school’s main quad for a ceremony with patriotic songs and inspirational messages from student leaders.

At one end, a Muslim group distributed copies of the Koran. Fewer than 100 feet away, several local police officers and firefighters stood solemnly in front of a municipal fire truck, clutching tiny American flags.

“I was worried all day” about the possibility of new terror attacks, Silberman said. “I kept checking the Internet and the TV.”

Falling just days after Rosh Hashanah, the anniversary of the attacks came at a time already devoted to introspection in the Jewish tradition.

At Wayne State University in Detroit, Jewish students participated in memorial services at Hillel.

While the day was sad, at least the approach of the Sept. 11 anniversary muted anti-Israel sentiment on campus, junior Alex Vanness said.

“Normally, our newspapers are pro-Palestinian and it’s scary for some people,” he said. “It’s intimidating.”

At the University of Wisconsin, Hillel leaders recommended that students take time to “remember all of those who lost their lives,” even if they didn’t know any of the victims personally, said Matt Lowe, a Jewish Campus Service Corps Fellow at the university’s Hillel.

Hillel staff at the Madison campus “cleaned their schedules” so they would be able to help students who needed comfort on Sept. 11, he said.

The balmy weather in much of the country this Sept. 11 was eerily reminiscent of the beautiful morning that turned horrific a year ago.

Shortly after the planes hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon, classes were canceled and flags were lowered as students and professors tried to make sense of the murders in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.

“It really highlighted for me the evil in this world,” recalled Tami Heisler, a student who is president of the Hillel executive board at Columbia University. “It’s really strange thinking about a year ago today.”

Numerous memorial events were scheduled at Columbia this Sept. 11, with some geared toward unifying a still rattled Jewish community.

At San Francisco State University, a hotbed of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment in recent years, Jewish students held a “very intimate, very small” memorial at Hillel, according to senior Dennis Dubinsky, co-chair of the campus Israel coalition.

“There is a fear of showing solidarity with Israel” because of the strength of anti-Israel forces on campus, including among the faculty.

Students even have been “afraid to wear a Magen David” around campus, he said.

At the University of Illinois, volunteers offered flags to students scurrying between classes. Though the level of student patriotism has fallen somewhat from its post-Sept. 11 highs, students still felt compelled to comfort and reassure each other on the anniversary of the attacks.

Silberman took solace in the notion that he’s “not alone in how I feel” on the anniversary.

“I’m happy that I was able to go about my daily routine,” he said. The “terrorists couldn’t take our freedom away.”