Girl who lost her father on September 11 joins Israeli army in fight against terrorism

Jamie Gartenberg Pila's father was killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 – six months before she was born. Now she is determined to honor his memory by fighting against the “same” enemy as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.

Pila, 22, never met her father, James Gartenberg. He died on September 11 while working on the 86th floor of the North Tower.

“I felt like I had more to give to the world and could make a small contribution to the fight against terrorism,” she told the Post. “His death is motivation for me to stay strong and keep fighting.”

Pila, a native of central New Jersey, moved to Israel four years ago after graduating from high school and joined the Israel Defense Forces a few months later.

During her deployment in southern Israel on October 7, she said: “I was lying on the ground while the same terrorists who celebrated the murder of my father shot at me.”

Now she serves as a lone combat soldier and always carries a precious gold medallion with her father's picture and the inscription “Daddy's Angel”.

“I have it in my pocket right now. I've carried it with me my entire time in the service,” Jamie told The Post from Jerusalem on Wednesday, the 23rd anniversary of 9/11.

“The motivation – I've seen first-hand what terrorism is all my life,” she said. “Terror groups have different names, but they have a common goal. It's hatred against the free world, against innocent civilians.”

“October 7th happened against Jews, [but] “People don’t understand that it’s directed against the whole world,” she said.

On September 11, 2001, Pila's mother, Jill, was three months pregnant when Gartenberg, 35, said goodbye to her and their two-year-old daughter, Nicole, and left to work as a commercial real estate investor at Julien J. Studley. It would be his last day on the job, as he had accepted a position at another firm.

After the first plane hit and smoke began pouring into his office, Gartenberg and an assistant desperately tried to open the door to the stairwell, but it was blocked by debris. Fire blocked their access to a second staircase.

He tried calling 911, but the line was busy. He called Jill at work, but she wasn't there yet, so he left her a message declaring his love for her.

As friends, colleagues and family have recounted over the years, Gartenberg called several of them from the burning tower before it collapsed, telling them he was trapped and scared. Heartbreakingly, he spoke live on WABC and gave firefighters directions on where to find him.

Eventually he spoke to Jill several times and told her that he loved her and her family.

“When things get tough, especially in the army, I think of him and how his life was taken. And that's why I'm here,” Pila said.

During the annual remembrance ceremony last week at the 9/11 Living Memorial in the Arazim Valley of Ramot in Jerusalem, Jamie received a standing ovation for her moving remarks about her father and her mission in the fight against terror.

The Israeli memorial, the only one in the world outside the United States that lists all the names of the September 11 victims, represents a “feeling of home.”

“When I see my father's name, I feel at home. I can just go there, sit down and clear my head.”

Her father's alma mater, the University of Michigan, is now a breeding ground for terrorist supporters, she says. The bond between the people there is not football, but the burning of American flags.

“It would break my father's heart to see that. It broke my heart.”

Her mother, Jill, from New Jersey, who has since remarried and had two more children, told the Jerusalem Post that she was “so proud” of her “heroine” – her daughter.

“That’s how much of her is him,” Jill said of her late husband and youngest daughter.

“If I can make even the smallest contribution to preventing someone from experiencing what it is like to lose a loved one to terrorism, I will do everything,” said Pila. “I have never felt safer than in Israel – as a human being, as a Jew. As crazy as it sounds, I feel safest here. Even my own friends [in America]they don’t understand the situation and are protesting against things they know nothing about.”