While so many first-responders gave their lives in their attempts to save others on September 11, one group witnessed a succession of open miracles — and no losses.
I’m here to listen to some prominent Hatzolah members share their recollections of 9/11 for the tenth anniversary coverage of that tragedy of tragedies — but I fail. Because as I sit across from Heshy Jacob Hatzolah’s indomitable president it quickly becomes clear I’ve gotten it all wrong: for Heshy as for Hatzolah CEO Rabbi Dovid Cohen and board member Zelig Gitelis who joined our conversation there are no 9/11 “anniversaries ” tenth or otherwise. They — like the 185 other Hatzolah members who spent September 11 2001 in downtown Manhattan — relive those frightening hours every day of their lives.
Before sitting down to talk Heshy insists that we listen to the first few minutes of the tapes of the Hatzolah dispatcher receiving the initial frantic reports from the field of the attack sending every possible unit speeding toward the Towers. It’s a deeply surreal experience to sit there knowing how events would unfold hearing human beings — Yidden — trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. The eight or so of us packed into that tiny room riveted to that recording are listening to a world that was just minutes away from losing its pre-9/11 innocence forever.
With that bracing introduction Heshy frames the conversation to follow: “This isn’t a story about Jacob or Cohen or Gitelis or about any of the 185 or so Hatzolah members who were there that day. You know what it’s about? About a year and a half ago I was asked to speak at an NCSY event on the subject of ‘Are nissim seen in this generation?’ And the answer I gave was an emphatic “Yes.”
“This is a story“ Heshy continues “about how the Ribono shel Olam did nissim v’nifla’os for us on that day to the point that when at the end of the day the head of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) system Chief Robert McCracken asked Itzy Stern ‘How many guys did you lose?’ Itzy didn’t want to tell him how many we lost because we hadn’t lost any and they had lost hundreds. So he began describing a broken leg here a broken arm there. Chief McCracken interrupted him: ‘No I mean how many died?’ So Itzy sheepishly said ‘None.’ The chief thought for a moment and said ‘Tomorrow I’m staying with you. It’s evident G-d was with you today.’ ”
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