Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #213 (9/11/2026): 25 YEARS 

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Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #213 (9/11/2026): 25 YEARS 

Subject: Rabbi Sol reflects on the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

This Rabbinical Reflection first aired Sept. 12, 2026 on the “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. 

Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections air on the long-running Dave’s Gone By program (davesgoneby.com) and are also archived on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com.

Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage shows, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon” and “Hate Speech…With Love: Another Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon.”

© 2026 TotalTheater Productions. All Rights Reserved.

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #213 (9/11/2026): 25 Years

(c)2026 David Lefkowitz. airs September 11, 2026 on Dave’s Gone By.  

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for September 11th, 2026.

Has it really been a quarter century since the attacks of 9/11? Twenty-five years gone since a handful of psycho terrorists brought New York to a cataclysmic reckoning with the Arab world.

It can’t be that long ago. It feels like it happened before Covid but after the last episode of Breaking Bad. Now, September 11th can seem recent because so many horrible side effects are still with us. You can never feel 100 percent safe in downtown New York. Only a year ago did we stop taking off our shoes to get on an airplane. And any time a bunch of people gather in a mall, or a sporting event, or a parade, and somebody screams “Allahu Akbar!”, you know that’s won’t be followed by a demonstration of God’s greatness. 

Watch any movie made in New York in the 30 years before 9/11, and there’s that moment, the establishing shot of the skyline:  you see two boring but really tall towers that tell the world, “Hey, this ain’t Wichita. This is Manhattan. And if you can make it here, you probably already have a trust fund.” Those towers have been rebuilt into a glassy obelisk thing, but I miss the rectangles. And the people who worked in them.

At the risk of sounding Islamophobic, 9/11 is the day that reminded us why we’re phobic about Islam in the first place. The savagery was so traumatic, any prompt sends us right back to where we were, what we were doing, what we should have been doing instead of what we were doing, and how we grieved in that moment. Yet we are also reminded that the invasion, which instantly took the lives of 3000 Americans and whose long-term effects are still killing us, did not occur last month. In fact, it’s so long ago that the current generation of college kids wasn’t born until five years after the planes hit Wall Street and the Pentagon. Which means that to these babies, September 11th might as well be the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. It’s a lesson in the history books – except high schools are so bad they barely have time to get through World War II, let alone anything that happened in the 21st century. 

Therefore, young people have no memory of 9/11, no understanding of life beyond their own tattoos and noise-canceling headphones. This renders them perfect targets for the lies of social media and noise-making influencers. An influencer is someone who achieved fame for their looks, which gives them carte blanche to pontificate on everything they know nothing about. Even worse are the celebrities whose modicum of talent fools them into believing they’re political scientists who can win a Nobel peace prize by bashing Israel. Schmucklemore? Javier Boredom? Roger Warthog? These scumbags think they’re a think tank? 

Billie Foolish? Cynthia Toxin? Susan Sarandump? I don’t know where these putas learned poli sci, but I hope their bodies are polycystic – because left-wing college punks eat their garbage up. “9/11 was America’s fault.” “Bibi Netanyahu is Hitler.” “From the River to the Sea – It’s Team Hamas for Me!” Even the October 7th massacre is the Jews’ fault for oppressing the poor, poor Palestinians who have nowhere else to live — except 70 other countries in the Middle East and Africa . . . who won’t let them in. And that’s somehow the Jews’ fault, too.

Everything’s our fault again. Just like in the Middle Ages, like Papal Spain, like Weimar Germany. Only now the anti-Semitism is concealed behind blather like, “We just hate the Likud government. We just want the settlers out. We just prefer Jews not living near the Mediterranean but under it.” 

History has proven Hebrews need a safe place of our own to live, and that very idea puts the whole world out of joint. Muslims kill RFK, throw Leon Klinghoffer overboard, kidnap and kill an Olympic team, attack Israel on Yom Kippur, slaughter French cartoonists, butcher an Israeli music festival, blow up trains in Madrid and Mumbai, bomb airports in London, Munich, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Athens; shoot up an Australian beach, blast the Boston Marathon, and nuke the World Trade Center twice – yet somehow Arabs are the pitiful victims of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Just ask any unwashed coed with a Free Gaza sign and a green tent – she’ll be happy to parrot back the hypocrisies she learned in her guilt-ridden, gender-dysmorphic, Marxist-mangling, vegan social-justice-warrior workshop. 

Worse, she can’t begin to conceive of the sunny Tuesday morning, 25 years ago, when a tornado of Muslim madness leveled downtown Manhattan. Or that same evening, when New Yorkers covered with human ash, zombied their way across the Brooklyn Bridge. Or the months following, when every American lived in fear, choked on rage, and dwelled in sorrow. 

Not only has the universe not returned to normal since it went to hell in a hummus basket, but in so many ways it’s been turned upside down by the ignorant and naive. The terrorists are the freedom fighters, the victims are all colonizers, and the truth has become fertilizer.

But I remember. I don’t forget, and I don’t forgive. And if you’re gonna come at me this week and disparagingly call me a “Zio,” or say 9/11 was “an inside job,” or couch your Jew hatred in horseshit phrases like “AIPAC money” and “stolen land,” don’t be shocked if I go Ground Zero on you. I may not be a first responder, but I think you know my first response (shows middle finger). 

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Happy Jewish New Year, sad anniversary, and shalom dammit.

(c) 2026 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

Dave’s Gone By Interview (10/18/2025): DARREN DEVIVO & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with broadcaster DARREN DeVIVO

Topics include: WFUV, FM Radio NY Mets, 9/11

Segment airs Oct. 18, 2025 as part of episode #1004 of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2025 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com 

More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (9/11/2021): GARY LUCAS

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Show host Dave Lefkowitz chats with musician GARY LUCAS

Topics include: Captain Beefheart, music, travel, Gods and Monsters, 9/11, Caroline Sinclair

Segment aired Sept. 11, 2021 as part of the 815th episode of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations.  For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: 

http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By #815 (9/11/2021): THAT DAY

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Here is the 815th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Sept. 11, 2021. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Guests: musician Gary Lucas, theater writers Iris Dorbian, Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward

Featuring: Dave interviews musician Gary Lucas, Today/Yesterday Trivia Quiz (Sept. 11 w/ Iris Dorbian, Leslie Hoban Blake, David Sheward; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Hygiene), Dave Goes Off on Sept. 11th.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce
00:09:00 DAVE GOES OFF (That Day)
01:00:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY – Trivia Quiz (w/ Iris Dorbian, Leslie (Hoban) Blake, David Sheward)
02:30:00 GUEST: Gary Lucas
03:15:00 Friends of the Daverhood
03:26:00 DAVE GOES AWAY (NYC)
03:48:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Hygiene, CO)
03:52:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Sept. 11, 2021 playlist: “On An Overgrown Path” 15. Allegro” (03:01:00; Gary Lucas).

Gary Lucas
Iris Dorbian
David Sheward
Leslie (Hoban) Blake
Hygiene, CO
9/11 Memorial, NYC
your host

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/4/2020): KEITH SHERMAN & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with publicist KEITH SHERMAN

Topics include: Broadway, Frank Sinatra, COVID-19, 42nd Street. 

Segment aired April 4, 2020 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations.  For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2020 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (6/10/2017): IRENE SANKOFF & DAVID HEIN

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Dave Lefkowitz interviews musical-theater writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein

Topics include: Tony Awards, Come from Away, 9/11, My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding.

Segment scheduled to air June 10, 2017 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” 13th Annual TotalTheater Tony Special, hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2017 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (2/25/2017): LACHANZE & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actress LaChanze

Topics include: Once on this Island, Color Purple, 9/11, If/Then.
Segment airs Feb. 25, 2017 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2017 TotalTheater Productions.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (12/17/2011): GILBERT GOTTFRIED

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Dave Lefkowitz interviews comedian Gilbert Gottfried

Topics include: 9/11, the Hugh Hefner Roast, The Aristocrats, the Holocaust.

Segment originally aired Dec. 17, 2011 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Sad Note: Our friend of the Daverhood, Gilbert Gottfried, passed April 12, 2022. 

Note: Interview segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2011 TotalTheater Productions.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By #361 (9/17/2011): LOVELY RITA

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Here is the 361st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Sept. 17, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guest: Actress Rita Gardner

Dave chats with actress Rita Gardner of the original Fantasticks. Plus an autumnal Saturday Segue, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (fall)  and Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (9/11).

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:08:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Autumn 1
00:33:30 GUEST: Rita Gardner
01:16:00 Sponsors
01:24:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Autumn 2
01:39:30 INSIDE BROADWAY
01:55:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Fall)
02:33:00 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on 9/11
02:41:00 DAVE GOES OFF – on Potato Day
02:52:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Sept. 17, 2011 Playlist: “Fall” (00:08:30; Bruce Cockburn); “The Leaves That are Green” (00:11:30; Simon & Garfunkel); “Autumn” (00:14:00; Moondog); “Summer’s Gone” (00:16:00; Frogs Gone Fishin’); “When Summer’s Ended” (00:20:00; Bill Morrissey); “The Summer of My Wasted Youth” (00:23:30; Amy Rigby); “The Last Rose of Summer” (00:27:00; Tom Waits); “Much More / I Can See It” (00:31:30) & “Try to Remember / They Were You” (01:11:30; Rita Gardner). “Much More” (00:47:00; The Fantasticks, 1960 off-Broadway cast); “Falling Leaves” (01:25:00), “Heart Full of Leaves” (01:29:00), “Autumn Sea” (01:30:30) & “Autumn is Your Last Chance” (01:34:30; Robyn Hitchcock); “Hotel California” (01:46:30; Eagles); “Golden Loom” (01:55:30), “Sitting on Top of the World” (02:00:00), “Spirit on the Water” (02:04:00), “Cat’s in the Well” (02:12:00), “The Wicked Messenger” (02:15:30) & “Idiot Wind” (02:17:30; Bob Dylan); “Hot Potatoes” (02:37:30; The Kinks); “Autumn Leaves” (02:57:30; Eva Cassidy).

Rita Gardner
Potato Day!
autumn
Rabbi Sol Solomon

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #023 (9/17/2011): Ten Years

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #23 (9/17/2011): Ten Years

aired Sept. 17, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koxCrkPZuM8

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 11th, 2011.

Boy, just hearing that date gets you in the kishkes, doesn’t it? September 11th 2011. Somehow that just sounds more meaningful than September 11th 2009 or September 11th 2003 – even though more time has passed. I suppose a ten-year anniversary makes you realize that, no matter what, life goes on, years pass; while at the same time, you recall how much younger you were a decade ago, and what an impact the event had on your life. 

Ten years ago, Wall Street was destroyed, not by corruption from within – that came later – but by evil from without. Arabs, in airplanes, with box-cutters. How these scumpuppets were able to circumvent the FAA, the Air Force, the civil defense and any air-traffic controller with eyes remains a mystery greater than how Drakes gets that crème filling into Yodels. I mean, it’s all rolled up; how the hell do they do that?

Anyway, this week we’re hearing a lot of talk about closure. Ten years – it’s almost another generation. The world moves forward, the dead are not coming back, and, of course, we got Bin Laden. When the bullet sailed through his forehead, it made a satisfying parallel to those planes pushing through the buildings. As I mentioned in a previous Reflection, Osama’s death was a wonderful thing, but killing him kills him, not Jihad, not terrorism, not the memories.

As we all know, grief does not follow a time-table. Time heals wounds, but you never know when a scab will come off and start bleeding again. Looking at downtown Manhattan, remembering the 3000 victims, watching any movie that opens with a shot of that old New York City skyline – it all kicks up a sandstorm of memories.

And much as we all want mental therapy and ways to feel better about 9/11, let’s not go overboard making believe something good came out of the attacks. Nothing good came out of that. It was a nightmare; we suffered emotionally, financially, physically. Don’t be looking for feel-good post-mortems because how could there be a silver lining from such a thing? Well, maybe if one of those airplanes had the Kardashian family on it, but it would have to be the whole family, including Bruce Jenner, you know what I’m saying?

Seriously, though, at least there has finally been some progress rebuilding Ground Zero, and it is already possible to foresee a time when our children will think of 9/11 as “mom and dad’s Pearl Harbor Day,” rather than that day. Whether or not we fudged the endgame in Afghanistan, I’m glad we killed a lot of people there. Iraq may have been a blunder, but I’m glad we killed a lot of people there, too. God, I sound like a homicidal Andy Rooney.

On the other hand, they’re saying pretty soon we can once again go through airports keeping the shoes on our feet. Why? Because those feet kicked some ass.

Somewhere, in hell, there’s a dozen Arabs being mocked and brutalized by 72 appallingly ugly virgins, all of them holding box cutters in one hand and Moslem shmeckels in the other. Happy goddamn anniversary.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

(c) 2011 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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