Shimmy Biegeleisen was not only my friend, he was there at the beginning of my journalist career and I was there near the end of his life. As reporters, we try to stay outside the stories but sometimes the hand of God throws us into … not the middle, but the periphery.
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When President Trump spoke about Shimmy in his 9/11 Memorial address, everyone was buzzing curiously. A few individuals called his widow or one of his children, but the family were just as surprised the President had chosen to use his story as a sympathetic vignette. They were pleased, and proud, especially because it was so genuine.
Several people attending a 30-day memorial service for the Sbarro victims came “late to work” at the World Trade Center and “missed” the fiery furnace.
The story of Shimmy begins in a famous family, known for the multifarious collection of works available at the Biegeleisen book store. It sells Jewish tomes in a way unlike most other Judaica stores. Instead of promoting the current bestsellers and filling shelf after shelf with the least original — hence least controversial — material, it prizes novelty and variety.
The store stood out from its earliest days in the mid-20th century. Instead of namby pap, they were Mom-and-Pop in a fresh, refreshing way. They attracted a wide array of scholars and intellectuals alongside earthier book buffs. You were likely to meet Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) or Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) or Isaac Bashevis Singer (1903-1991) browsing alongside prominent rabbinical figures.
The great Jewish singer and composer, Shlomo Carlebach (1925-1994), loved to nurture his theological side by finding lesser known works hiding in the legendary labyrinth of bookshelves. Shimmy told me that once Carlebach was navigating the aisles and filling his hands with books. His wife was following, baby daughter in her arms. As Carlebach was getting ready to pay the cashier, his wife called out, “Look, the baby reached out and touched these books.” He cheerfully added those to his “cart.”
While appreciating that bookish world, Shimmy entered the world of finance, eventually working his way up to Vice President at Fiduciary Trust, offices in the World Trade Center, aka the Twin Towers.
He and I attended school together in the Rabbi Chaim Berlin yeshiva. I was a year or two ahead of him, but as an aspiring writer, I looked at him as literary royalty. We set up a creative writing “office” in his dormitory apartment. I brought the English typewriter and Yaakov Shapiro (subject for another column) had the Hebrew.
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We all pecked away, pursuing the dream. I got one mystery story published, alongside one review of a public lecture, and amassed enough rejection slips from magazines for a fleet of paper airplanes. Shimmy would always pop in, read a page, and encourage me to press on.
That was 1976. A quarter-century later it was August 9, 2001. That day the Sbarro restaurant at the corner of King George and Jaffa Streets in Jerusalem was blown up by a Palestinian suicide bomber. Sixteen people were killed, including seven children and a pregnant woman. That woman was the only child of Holocaust survivors, and her first child was never born.
That night I was in New York City, where I had a summer radio show with Judah Levin, the great pro-life activist. I stepped into Chap-A-Nosh, the iconic Brooklyn kosher Chinese eatery that opened in 1973 and folded earlier this year. Shimmy was at his favorite table in the back right corner, with our mutual friend Benjamin Berry. They were true pals, always engaged in a business deal or community activism.
Shimmy called out a greeting. I stopped over at their nook and he asked, “Will you speak about the Sbarro bombing on your show tonight?” I acknowledged that was a good idea and promised to take it on.
At the time, I did not know to be grateful to God for affording us this moment to say good-bye. One month later, he was the victim of a bigger bombing, and it was left to me to cover his passing. In Hebrew they say: “He went to menuchos (restfulness), we went to anachos (groans).” In English we might say: “He went to peace, we went to pieces.”
Now President Trump has reminded us all of this good man. Shimmy Biegeleisen was lying on the floor of his office, telling his wife and children with his last breaths that he loved them, asking his friends to look after them. He died a moral hero as well as a martyr, exhibiting that beautiful bouquet of middle class solidity merged with energetic communal engagement.
Those two attacks are always locked together in the Jewish communal mind, Sbarro and Twin Towers. Several people attending a 30-day memorial service for the Sbarro victims came “late to work” at the World Trade Center and “missed” the fiery furnace. God had saved them — and you, and me — to fight the evil that still lurks below … and sometimes, above.
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