View from New York

As you can well imagine, things on this side of the Atlantic have undergone a drastic sea change since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September. I live in a suburb of Manhattan and my husband works in midtown Manhattan, so our world has been directly affected by this tragedy. My nephew's best friend worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, the large firm located high up in one of the World Trade Center towers. He is lost and by this time presumed dead. One of my high school classmates was on the downed plane from Newark to San Francisco and some members of our synagogue are either dead, missing, or injured as many of them worked or commuted to the area of the center.

My close friend from medical school works at St Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village. This was the major triage centre and she witnessed the crumbling of the first tower as she walked to the hospital's emergency department to help out. I also called one of my former students, an Arab American who is now doing his paediatrics residency at a prestigious hospital in New York, to get his view on the events. …