Nine days after the attacks, another Jewish response began.
Near the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner at First Avenue and 30th Street, Orthodox volunteers established continuous shmira over remains recovered from the World Trade Center.
Armin Osgood
Armin Osgood of Congregation Ohab Zedek helped coordinate the vigil.
It began on September 20, 2001, and continued around the clock, including nights and Shabbos, through April 30, 2002.
Shabbos created a practical problem because many regular volunteers lived too far away to walk. But Stern College for Women was close enough, so students began walking from their dormitories to the temporary morgue.
One of the Stern students who helped organize the Shabbos rotation was only 20 years old. She later recalled repeatedly taking the midnight Friday-night shift and entering the temporary morgue with the feeling that she was walking onto holy ground.
There could be no conversation with the people they were watching and no thank-you. The volunteers simply sat and recited Tehillim.
The remains were not exclusively Jewish. Jewish remains were among them, and no one knew which were which. The volunteers therefore continued sitting with them, hour after hour and Shabbos after Shabbos, for more than seven months.
