REMEMBER, REMEMBER, THE ELEVENTH OF SEPTEMBER

“Some people say
It's what we deserve
For sins against g-d
For crimes in the world
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
Since that day
They wounded New York
Some people say
They hate us of old
Our women unveiled
Our slaves and our gold
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
But answer me this
I won't take you to court
Did you go crazy
Or did you report
On that day
On that day
They wounded New York”
- Leonard Cohen - On That Day

JANE ELLEN BAESZLER.
This is one of 2,996 names written on the gates of history, in a moment of infamy that rings in our ears, and will for decades to come. When the closest we will ever come to the ‘four horsemen of the apocalypse’ came crashing down on our country, our world.

On September 11, 2001, an attack on U.S soil was perpetrated, one that struck to the core of our complacency, and divided our country.

Death by itself is not a tragedy. It comes to us all, part and parcel of this finite existence, prone to error and one day doomed to die. What comes after is guesswork.

But life cut short by the scimitar of ideology? An innocent, caught in the crossfire of conflict? That is a tragedy: multiply that by three thousandfold, and it becomes genocidal; it becomes an atrocity.

It becomes unforgivable.

JANE ELLEN BAESZLER.

Remember that name. Remember them all. Pray, or have a moment of silence, or light a candle. Do whatever soothes your heart in grief. Let us raise our voices in lament – let us voice our outrage to the world. Let us say “Never again!”

But never forget. Never forgive.

Remember, remember, the Eleventh of September.