In the summer of 2001, I started studying for my bat mitzvah. My Little League team had won another championship. My world was defined by ordinary childhood milestones.

Weeks later, I was sitting in eighth-grade math class on Sept. 11 when we learned about the attacks. Hundreds of us were shuffled into the cafeteria. Many students and teachers were sobbing; others sat shaken, trying to understand what was happening.

I never forgot the fear in that room.

Oct. 7, 2023, brought back feelings I first encountered at 12: another day of mass terrorism dividing life into a before and an after. On this third anniversary, I think of the 1,200 lives stolen that day and how Israelis — and Jews around the world — have learned to live in its aftermath.

The attacks belong to different histories, but the rupture is hauntingly familiar. People went to work. Families slept in their homes. Young people danced through the night. And suddenly, the........

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