The shmira vigil for the victims of 9/11 תהלים ביי די קרבנות: די שמירה נאך 11טן סעפטעמבער

A mitzvah that could not wait

Under Jewish law, a deceased person is not left alone from the moment of passing until burial. Someone sits with the body and recites Tehillim; this is called "shmira." Ordinarily it lasts no more than a day or two, since every effort is made to bury as quickly as possible ^[1].

After the terrible attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, the situation was entirely different. The victims' remains were brought to the city's Medical Examiner (the office that identifies the deceased), where they were kept in a dozen refrigerated trucks under a huge tent across from the office, about three miles north of Ground Zero ^[1]. A quick burial was impossible: identification took months and years.

Seven months, day and night

What emerged there was an extraordinary shmira. From September 20, 2001 until April 30, 2002, more than seven months, a Jew was always sitting there, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without a single break ^[1][2]. Volunteers came in shifts of four hours each and recited Tehillim beside the remains ^[1].

The trucks did not hold Jews alone. But because it was assumed that Jewish victims were among them, it was held that shmira was required ^[1]. In practice, the volunteers recited Tehillim for all the victims, Jews and non-Jews alike ^[2].

Who led it

The shmira was organized by Ohab Zedek, the Orthodox shul on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The shul's rabbi, Rabbi Allen Schwartz, asked a congregant, Reb Ermin Osgood, a shoe salesman who had just retired, to run it ^[2]. Osgood laid out the schedule on a yellow sheet of paper and began writing in names. Many of the volunteers came from his congregation; others came from New Jersey and Pennsylvania ^[1][2]. By his own account, he turned no one away: anyone who could not read Hebrew, he told to recite the Tehillim in English ^[2].

Shabbos: the students of Stern College

The hardest time was Shabbos, when one cannot travel. Ohab Zedek was too far to walk. Here the students of Stern College, the women's college of Yeshiva University, stepped in; their dormitories were only a few blocks from the site at 30th Street and First Avenue ^[1][2]. One student, Jessica Russak-Hoffman, recruited more than a dozen young women. Others took the shift from midnight to four in the morning, and a student who lived nearby cooked the Shabbos meals for those sitting shmira ^[2]. The New York Times later described their work ^[1].

A kiddush Hashem

Rabbi Schwartz took a shift every Friday morning. He recounted that once a Catholic family, unable to find a priest, asked him to say something. He recited the "Kel Malei Rachamim," the prayer said at a funeral, in English, and that, he said, was a kiddush Hashem ^[2].

The first yahrzeit

A year later, the first yahrzeit according to the Jewish calendar fell on the first night of Selichos. Those who had sat shmira gathered again at the Medical Examiner, recited Selichos, and then divided the entire Tehillim among themselves and completed it in a few minutes ^[1].

Why it matters

The story shows how an ancient Jewish mitzvah, kavod hames (honoring the dead), was upheld even in the hardest circumstances, in the middle of a city in mourning. For our readers it is also part of the broader story of how Jews in New York, Chassidim, Litvish and Modern Orthodox, responded to September 11. The Shuki Pedia video on September 11 tells more about those days.