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changed the agenda. “It was 
no longer celebratory; it was 
more somber.”
After the event, the Detroiters 
headed to the Renaissance 
Hotel in Nazareth, an Arab-run 
hotel that had been shuttered 
but was opened just for the mis-
sion-goers.
“We walked into the lobby 

and saw they had wheeled out 
large-screen TVs. Many of us 
had not seen one image the 
entire day,
” Davidoff said. “
As 
we watched the coverage, many 
of our delegation became emo-
tionally overwhelmed. Seeing 
the towers falling was a horrific 
moment.
”
Photographer Debbie Hall 
captured the horror the delega-
tion felt with a photo of Rachel 
Rosenthal “crying my eyes out 
on my mom’s shoulder,
” she 
said.
Kirsbaum said, “I didn’t 
understand the immensity of 
the attacks until we got back to 
the hotel. It was such a horrible 
thing to see. I was wrapped up 
in the emotions but trying to 
do my job as a reporter. It was a 
pretty sleepless evening.
” 
Kirsbaum recalls that the next 
morning, their first stop was at 
a school Detroit had been sup-
porting that had been attacked 
earlier that year. “There were 
guards everywhere. We walked 
into the courtyard and saw an 
Israeli flag and an American 
flag, both flying half-staff. Kids 
were lined up holding flowers 
for us. Before we even took the 
tour, they planted a tree for us 
in a moving ceremony.
“
All the children had written 
us notes and drew us pictures,
” 
he added. “I took one with me 
and still have it. It says, ‘I am 
very sorri’ with a pencil draw-
ing of planes crashing into the 
building. It was really touching.
”
Rachel Rosenthal said that 
their “friends in Israel were 
there for us. A lot of that day 
was a bit of blur … Then I 
remember getting on the bus 
and trying to get back home.
”

THE RETURN HOME
Mission-goers spent the next 
several days in Jerusalem while 
the mission leaders worked 
the phones, trying to arrange 
a flight home. “We called Sen. 
Carl Levin to help us,” Jackier 
recalled.

PHOTO BY DEBBIE HILL
PHOTO BY DEBBIE HILL

Marta Rosenthal of Franklin 
holds her daughter Rachel as 
they watch footage of the ter-
rorist attacks in America on a 
large-screen TV in the Nazareth 
Renaissance Hotel.

Yoav Raban was nearly 21 on Sept. 10, 2001, on his way to Detroit 
for a mifgash, exchange visit, following a 10-day Hillel of Metro 
Detroit Community Birthright trip in Israel. He had been selected 
as one of six Israelis from Michigan’s Partnership Region to join the 
Birthright trip.
He had arrived in New York two weeks prior to his flight to 
Detroit, scheduled for Sept. 11, in order to meet friends and tour 
the city. 
 “On the morning of Sept. 10, I wanted to say goodbye to the city 
and decided the best way to do that would be to go on top of the 
Observation Deck of the World Trade Center for one last scenic 
view of the city,
” he said. 
 He was with his dad, who was also making his way to Detroit for 
a business meeting, when they 
arrived at LaGuardia airport on 
Sept. 11. “We were not allowed 
to go in. We were told there was 
a bomb threat, something we 
were very used to from back 
home when there were daily 
suicide bombings, and so the 
notion of a bomb threat was an 
everyday thing for us. 
“We thought we would wait 
outside for a bit, and they will 
surely clear the bomb threat and 
allow us back in just like they do in Israel,
” he continued. “But after 
a couple of hours, we were told that all flights were canceled, and 
we should go back to the city.
”
Neither Yoav nor his father had a cell phone. They began to make 
their way back to the city, clueless as to what had happened. “We 
could see the smoke all the way from Queens, but we had no idea 
what we were looking at.
” 
After hours of looking for a bus, they made it back to their uncle’s 
hotel room, with whom they had been staying. It was already late 
evening. “When he opened the door for us, he was pale, as if he had 
seen a couple of ghosts,
” he said. 
“We asked him in such a naive manner, ‘What is going on in the 
city today? It’s crazier than ever out there,
’” Yoav continued. “He 
was absolutely shocked and in total disbelief, asking us if we really 
had no idea what was going on. He immediately took us in front of 

An Israeli in 
New York on 9-11 — 
A Firsthand Account

Yoav on 
the World 
Trade Center 
observation 
deck, Sept. 
10, 2001. 

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