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WHEELING -- Rabbi Joshua Lief of Wheeling’s Temple Shalom said remembrance ceremonies for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., are just as important now as ever, and perhaps even more important. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks on American soil.
“That means an entire generation has grown up since and does not remember what life was like before and how we all felt that day,” he said. “What was lost, in addition to the thousands of lives that morning, was perhaps our national sense of innocence.”
Wheeling will hold its annual Sept. 11 interfaith remembrance ceremony at noon Friday at Wheeling’s Heritage Port. Lief, who coordinates the event, said Ohio Valley faith leaders and civic leaders will attend, as well as first responders and Ohio County Schools students. Members of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra also will perform.
For the 25th anniversary, Lief said former Ohio County EMA Director Lou Vargo has arranged for wreaths dedicated to fallen police officers and firefighters from that day. The wreaths, made by Wheeling Flower Shop, are sponsored by Panhandle Cleaning and Restoration.
Though innocence was lost that day in 2001 through the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the hijacking of Flight 93, Lief said that immediately afterward, a national sense of unity and resilience was found.
“I’m not sure that it has endured to the present,” he said. “It takes time and effort to step out of the chaos and the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, the cacophony and dissonance of social media and the frustrations of a world that is broken to remember that, once upon a time, we stood together in mourning and in remembrance, and we could do so again.”
Lief has appreciated the reception this ceremony has received in the years that he has coordinated it in Wheeling. It shows that it lives up to its nickname of “The Friendly City” and has remained a supportive place. That doesn’t mean, he continued, that the local community has been immune to the pain felt after the attacks.
So ceremonies like Friday’s will remain a crucial event, serving as a reminder of both the tragedy of that day and the resilience that followed.
“If we don’t take time to remember,” he said, “the significance will be forgotten.”