In honor of the fifteenth anniversary of the attacks on September 11, I thought, rather than write new comments, I would offer links to two pieces I wrote that sum up many of my complicated feelings about the event. I’m a New Yorker born and bred, and many people I know were personally affected by the tragedy. My high school has a plaque commemorating 12 students who died. I can’t count the number of friends who witnessed the violence first hand. Yet, the event will always be a tangled web or reflection, analyses, and critique for me. I’m a philosopher. That’s how I think about stuff.

“A Jewish New Yorker’s Reflection on the Terrorist Acts in New York.“

This is a guest sermon I gave on Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year, on September 17, 2001, six days after the attack. It was delivered at B’nai Israel Synagogue, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, six weeks after I moved to town for my new job at the University of North Dakota.

To Download a PDF, click here.

“Aliens, Traitors and Elitists: University Values and the Faculty”

This is an essay focusing on how difficult it was to be a teacher after the attack. It explores why so many people didn’t want to intellectually examine the event from an intellectual perspective. It has lots of cultural analysis, and draws from science fiction, the Rocky movies, and Good Will Hunting, among other things. It was originally published in the National Education Association journal, Though & Action.

To Download a PDF, click here.

Feel free to comment below and to share these essays. Just please, as always, keep the author information intact.