9/11

Today is not the yahrzeit, but since today is the day the 2996 tributes are going up, here are links to tributes to the two (thank G-d, only two) 9/11 victims we knew personally.

Shimmy Biegeleisen
During high school, The Spouse worked in (or rather bartered in--he took most of his wages in books) the Biegeleisen family seforim store. When we're back in New York, we still stop by the new location in Boro Park, and it's still our go-to store for hard to find Judaica, be it old books or books which one needs a personal reference to be allowed to buy. (Yes, true story.) With one thing and the other, and living in the neighborhood, you get to know nearly everyone, like The Spouse got to know Shimmy.

Shimmy, HY"D, had the zechus of letting his family know where he was, so when the initial psak came out, declaring every unaccounted-for person who was known to be in the Towers at the time of the crash halachically dead, hsi family could begin the process of mourning.

Eliyahu Furman
The Furman family, though, did got get that privilege and had to wait long months until Chavie (my sister-in-law's adopted sister) was declared a widow and not an agunah. I remember seeing her and the kids at our mutual neice's wedding that December, how heartbreaking it was to see those nearly-perfect little angels and realize I was seeing part of their lives that Eliyahu never would.

May G-d avenge their blood.

As a family we were lucky. One of The Spouse's nephews worked in the Towers and was just about to get on an elevator when the first plane hit. He freaked out so badly, just from the sound, that he ran from the building, past the first bridge to Brooklyn and caught himself only at the second. If it had hit one minute later... ut it's hard, thinking abuot hashgacha pratit, because if it was what saved Ari, wasn't it also what doomed Shimmy and Eliyahu?