(Jewish Group) How 9/11 changed the way American Jews keep themselves safe

‘A rising baseline of fear’: How 9/11 changed the way American Jews keep themselves safe

Like many New Yorkers, Dara Horn remembers the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, unfolding like a surreal nightmare.

Sitting in her Manhattan apartment, watching the second tower go up in smoke on live TV. Walking down streets plastered with posters bearing the faces of missing people. Crying every day for six months.

But it was four weeks after 9/11, on the festive Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, that Horn saw with her own eyes how the attack was changing Jewish life in her city. Every year, police would close off a long stretch of West End Avenue in Manhattan, and synagogues of all stripes would gather for a night filled with crowds of Jews singing and dancing together.

That year, so soon after the attacks, the street party didn’t happen. Instead, Horn recalls each synagogue celebrating inside, on its own, often behind physical barriers.

“​​I just remember thinking on that Simchat Torah, are we ever going to dance outside again?” said Horn, the author of the just-published essay collection “People Love Dead Jews.” “Now there’s a cop car in the parking lot and security guards, and things like that, but that just became the norm.”

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