Today, after 14 years, people across America take time to mourn the thousands of people who lost their lives in the September 11th terror attacks on the Pentagon, Twin Towers and Flight 93.
While most would see the killing of innocent civilians as something to mourn, some on the day of the attacks did quite the opposite. Many Palestinians in East Jerusalem celebrated, shot up their “victory V” hand symbols and rejoiced in the fact that America had been brought down.
In 2001, Israel was experiencing its own problems with terror during the Second Intifada, which had started a year before and wouldn’t end until 2005. During this time several attacks were carried out against Israeli civilians.
In the years that followed the attacks, Israel, having its own unique history with terror and a bond with the United States and compassion for its people in their time of need, started to create 9/11 memorials in Israel. The two main memorials are in Jerusalem and Ashdod.
The Ashdod memorial is a gray plaque mounted on a stone with a replica of the Twin Towers below it and both the American and Israeli flag above it. The stone is in the middle of a large park with several side-ways slanting trees. The memorial was created, “by Dov Shefi, whose son Hagay Shefi died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.”
In Jerusalem the memorial also in a park , but rather than it being on a stone it is a 30-foot high bronze-sculpted American flag. This memorial was dedicated in 2009 and was built after the “Jewish National Fund/Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael hired Israeli sculptor Eliezer Weishoff to design and create the memorial.”
These two memorials in Israel and the memorial in New York City, whose architect is Israeli, not only represent the bond between Israel and America as victims of terror, but as people of shared experiences and values of democracy, freedom, equality and life above all.