Terror In America

United In Grief

Terror attacks touch many families in Detroit.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

Staff- Writer

he early hours of uncertain-
ty following Tuesday, Sept.
1 l's terrorist attacks in
America turned from the
heart-wrenching stories of strangers to
the confirmation that Detroiters have
been identified as being among those
injured, killed, lost or grieving.
"Doreen Hermelin called to tell me
her nephew was missing in one of the
World Trade Center buildings," says
David Techner, funeral director of Ira
Kaufman Chapel in Southfield.
Accompanying Hermelin of
Bingham Farms and several of her
family members on a drive to New
York on Tuesday, Techner learned that
Ian Schneider, 45, who had been
working in his Cantor Fitzgerald office
on the 105th floor of the first twin
tower to be attacked, was unaccounted
for. By Thursday, Techner made
arrangements to hold a memorial serv-
ice for the following Sunday. Other
family members were able to fly in
over the weekend.
When Hermelin's husband David died
in November 2000, Techner met the
Schneider family, of Short Hills, N. J.,
and even spoke with Ian Schneider's
children Rachel, 10; Jake, 9; and Sophie,
7, about the loss of their Uncle David.
"They are an extremely close family,"
Techner says. "They share vacation
homes and travel together. He was the
kind of guy you met and never forgot.
Kids were just magnetized by this guy,"
Techner says of Schneider, whose funer-
al was attended by dozens of kids in
sports uniforms of teams he coached.
Cheryl Schneider's parents are Dr.
Robert and Reggie Fisher of California.
The family was together just days before
at the Santa Barbara, Calif, wedding of
Cheryl's brother. At a Friday night
Shabbat service with the family, Techner
says he was asked by one of the chil-
dren, "How can I light Shabbat candles,
when I'm so mad at God?"

More Detroit Sadness

While in New York, Techner also
helped make arrangements for a
memorial service for Gregory Richards,
who also worked at Cantor Fitzgerald.

9/21
2001

22

Richards was a New Yorker married
to former Detroiter Erin Pitt Richards,
whom he met when the two were stu-
dents at the University of Michigan in
Ann Arbor. They have an 18-month
old son, Asher.
Erin Richards' parents, Murray and
Ina Pitt of Bloomfield Hills, had been
staying in their own New York apart-
ment at the time of the attack. "There
were a lot of Detroiters at both funer-
als," Techner says.
According to Techner, both
Schneider and Richards were able to
reach their wives following the acci-
dent. "They told them they loved them
and would see them later," he says.
After spending five days in New
York, Techner says, "I saw such an
incredible spirit and love and support
for everyone afflicted by this tragedy."
A 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 23,
memorial service will be held for for-
mer Detroiter Josh Rosenthal, 43, at

the Birmingham Temple, where his
father Avram "Skip" Rosenthal of
Southfield is a past board member and
where his son was a member as a child.

Josh Rosenthal, of Manhattan, sen-
ior vice president of Fiduciary
International Inc., has been missing
since the attack on the WTC building
where he had been working on the
90th floor. Rosenthal's mother is
Marilynn Rosenthal of Ann Arbor.
Other Detroiters had a frightening
wait, but found their loved ones safe.
"My younger brother Ted works near
the World Trade Center," says Rabbi
Daniel Nevins of Adat Shalom
Synagogue. "We had some anxious
hours, but fortunately he was able to
call his wife, and she alerted the rest of
us that he was alive and walking home."
Exiting the subway on his way to
work the morning of Sept. 11, Ted
Nevins found himself beneath a cloud
of smoldering papers and smoke corn-

Defy The Perpetrators

Rabbi Wine urges congregants to affirm the
importance and value of the American way of life.

JUDITH DONER BERNE

Special to the Jewish News

A

n overflow crowd at the

Birmingham Temple in
Farmington Hills Friday
night, Sept. 14, included many invit-
ed to the bar mitzvah of Jackson

Klein of Franklin. Many were also
there as result of the horrific terrorist
attack in New York City on Sept. 11.
Although the night belonged to
Jackson, Rabbi Sherwin Wine didn't
postpone his feelings on the week's
events until Monday night's Rosh
Hashanah message. "I feel a certain
numbness, like someone hits you
over the head," he told the expectant
audience. He described the trauma of
watching jet airplanes crash into the
financial and military icons of
American power.
"We lost a child of this congrega-
tion — Josh Rosenthal. He was on
the 90th floor of the World Trade

Barbara and Art Wiggins of Bloomfield
Hills attended the service at the
Birmingham "Thmple.

Center. He was one of the stars of
our congregation as he was growing
up and, in a moment, gone.

"America will never be the same.
Maybe they could get to Hawaii, but
never New York, never Washington."
he said, referencing Japan's surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor 60 years ago
that drew the United States into
World. War II.
Rabbi Wine called last week's -events

ing from the direction of the World
Trade Center towers.
"I saw the woman from the office
next to mine who was in a state of
panic. She had seen a plane fly in to
the tower, presumably the second, and
had been trampled by people running
away, losing her shoes in the melee,"
he wrote in an e-mail to his brother.
Evacuating the building with co-work-
ers, he went to a nearby subway station. "I
looked up at the burning towers as black
smoke streamed into the air. We waited
on the platform for a minute when sud-
denly the first tower must have collapsed.
One second we were standina there talk-
ing, the next, an explosion of b gray ash-
soot enveloped us. I could not see or
breathe. I called out for my colleagues,
nervous that one would become disorient-
ed and fall onto the electrified tracks."
After crawling upstairs from the sub-
way station, he and several colleagues
entered an office building. "Once
inside, we could breathe but we had
all been covered entirely in white pow-
der," Nevins says.
"People streaming in from the street
were in a panic. The outside windows
appeared to be painted gray. After the
second collapse, the air began to

UNITED IN GRIEF on page 28

an unprecedented American tragedy,

and "attached to that tragedy is the
hate of the United States, Israel and the
Jewish people." He cited an enemy
abroad who will not easily go away,"
who seeks "to humiliate this country
and demoralize the American people.
"What was the hate that drives
people to sacrifice their lives, to kill
thousands and to imagine themselves
to be heroes?" he wondered aloud.
"We-need to identify and punish
them. We need to pay attention to
the causes that breed such hatred and
we need to affirm the importance and
value of the American way of life."
To pay tribute to those who died,
Rabbi Wine said, "we need to defy
the perpetrators, go on with our lives
and live them with courage and not
with fear." i_71

Scholarship Fund

Is Established

To honor Josh Rosenthal's memory-,

you may wish to contribute to:
Josh Rosenthal Scholarship Fund
do Dr. Susan Feagin
Vice President of Development
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

