Mark and Rena Sokolow testify in Manhattan federal court as lead plaintiffs in lawsuit against PA and PLO for six attacks in Israel from 2002 to 2004 that killed or wounded Americans • Defense claims Palestinian officials were not privy to the attacks.
The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff
The aftermath of an August 2001 suicide bombing in downtown Jerusalem
|
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons |
Members of a New York family testified Monday that the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. and their lesson that terror can happen anywhere persuaded them to cancel a trip to Disney World and instead visit Jerusalem in early 2002, where four of them were seriously injured in a suicide bombing.
Mark Sokolow, a lawyer, and his wife, Rena, testified in Manhattan federal court as lead plaintiffs in a $1 billion lawsuit against Palestinian entities for six attacks in Israel from 2002 to 2004 that killed or wounded Americans. Their three daughters, two of whom were injured in the blast, testified as well.
The defense, representing the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, denies that officials were privy to knowledge of the attacks. It says victims' experiences are not relevant to the question of responsibility.
Sokolow, of Woodmere, said he was sitting at his desk on the 38th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower when the north tower was struck on Sept. 11, 2001. He fled the building and discussed the attacks later with his daughter Elana, then 18.
"She said, 'Dad, you were so worried about sending me to Israel this year and look at what happened in New York,'" he recalled. "I realized she was right. Terrorism can happen anywhere."
Rena Sokolow agreed.
"9/11 basically changed everything," she said. "We thought it would be much more meaningful to take them to Israel. We decided not to go to Disney World."
On the last day of the family's eight-day visit, a bomb went off outside a Jerusalem shoe store.
Rena Sokolow said the world seemed to be spinning "like I was in a washing machine," and blood flowed so quickly from a broken leg that she thought she would die.
"I looked to my right and saw a severed head of a woman about 3 feet from me," she testified.
Rena Sokolow and her daughter, Jamie Sokolow Fenster, 12 at the time of the attack, dabbed their eyes with tissues during the testimony.
The only family member not physically harmed was Elana Sokolow Rosman, who was at school in Israel when the principal told her to rush to the hospital.
Her sister Lauren, her hair sticking out, eyebrows burned off, "looked like she had been electrocuted," she testified. Her youngest sister, Jamie, she said, was almost unrecognizable when she found her in another hospital, her face punctured with what seemed to be a thousand cuts.
When she returned home several months later, Elana Sokolow Rosman said, it was "never the same sort of normal carefree teen experience. I felt guilty if I was having fun."
She said she thinks about it every day.
Lauren Sokolow said loud noises still scare her, and she becomes anxious in crowds. Scars across her body are constant reminders, she said.
