Although I was just starting my junior year of high-school in Israel in September 2001, I was in Manhattan on 9/11. Many people have their story of this tragic day; mine is very small, but I’m thinking about it today so here it is. 1/10

I was meant to fly back to Israel in the evening of 9/11 after a week in CT doing presentations & fundraising for an international peacebuilding org that brought together teenagers from conflict zones to a summer camp in Maine where they could get to know each other 2/

That experience changed my life and I had the opportunity to travel to the US to talk to different groups of people who wanted to learn more about the work & support the org. I was traveling w/ a friend of mine who was a Palestinian from Israel. 3/

This was a year into the second Intifada, suicide bombings were horrific, violence in Palestine was shocking, and a 17 year old kid who was a member of our peace org and an Arab citizen of Israel was murdered by an Israeli soldier that October which hit everyone really hard. 4/

One of the talks we did that week in CT was in a suburban high-school. I was not even 16 yet and while my English was good I was nervous—all these American kids were my age and we sort of looked the same but our lives were very different. 5/

They seemed interested, asked questions but it was clear these normal America kids had no real idea what it was like to be afraid because your country was on fire. Nor should they. No kids should, really. I remember thinking how incredible that innocence was. How lucky. 6/

That was the morning of Sept 10. That afternoon, a friend picked us up from CT and we spend the night in Manhattan, with plans to go see the city a bit (my first time in NYC) the next morning before flying back home. 7/

Instead, as we were getting ready to leave the house, the first plane hit the North Tower. I somehow had the sense to call my mom, yell at her to turn on the tv, and tell her I was ok. The phones went down shortly thereafter. She would’ve lost her mind. Small blessing. 8/

I still remember how quiet the streets were when we ventured out in the afternoon. How empty. It was the day before my 16th birthday and it felt like the world had ended. My flight home got cancelled and I didn’t get back till the 17th. 9/

It’s been 19 years yet every so often I think about those highschool kids from CT who I met the day before, and how after that morning, they were no longer that innocent. Now, they knew fear. And it breaks my heart every time. /10 #NeverForget