Imade Enchassi and Noel Jacobs

Imad Enchass (IE): I went to work in the restaurant and then bang, I hear this explosion. I’m well familiar with car explosions. 

Noel Jacobs: Yeah. 

IE: Because I grew up in Lebanon and I grew up hearing bombs going off. And I turned the radio on immediately and the rumors already there. “This is a signature of Muslim terrorists,” and it was scary.

You know, I was worried for my family. And I could feel people stare at me, although I was in the restaurant for years there at that time, and all my customers know me, And this particular man who actually been to my dinner table, we actually shared the same political views. But somehow he pointed the finger at me.

He said, ”I hope you people didn’t do that.” 

This is the life I ran away from, um, bombed buildings, destruction, violence, pointing the finger at minority groups. All of a sudden I felt like this is all on my shoulder now. I should take a leading role, uh, in bringing people together. So, I decided to become an Imam. 

To this day, I make a pilgrimage to the memorial every year. And I still read everybody’s name and everybody’s date of birth and date of death on there. And I, I find myself circling around the 19 children’s chairs. The dates on the chairs shows a very, very short lifespan.