In the aftermath of 9/11, Sarri Singer was working in Israel with victims of terror when she became one herself. That violent act led her to found Strength to Strength, an organization that brings those who have experienced acts of terror first-hand regardless of nationality. The organization recently hosted young victims of terror and staff from Algeria, Argentina, England, Ireland, Israel, Spain, and the United States age 14-20, in New York from May 30-June 6 to help them connect with those who understand exactly what they have been through.

“What’s important to me is speaking about my experience,” says Singer, the assistant director of career services at Lander College for Women-The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School (LCW). “It’s a way of empowering myself through it. Seeing others get involved is a big part of my recovery.”

Singer knows. She survived a bus bombing in Jerusalem on June 11, 2003 herself and has just returned from Israel where she marked the 10th anniversary of the event this June. It was the first time she spent the anniversary in Israel, and she was able to do so by thanking the health professionals who treated her injuries at Hadassah-Ein Kerem Hospital and connecting with other victims of the bombing and surviving family members.

Singer, who is also an LCW graduate, had been living in Israel a year and a half when the bus bombing occurred. She had moved there in the wake of the World Trade Center bombings, working as a volunteer with bereaved family members and those who had survived terrorist attacks.

She was traveling on the city’s number 14 bus (pictured), when an 18-year-old Palestinian terrorist, dressed as a pious Jew boarded and detonated the bomb he was wearing. The explosion killed 16 innocents, and injured more than 100 others, Singer among them. She was pulled, burned and bleeding, from the twisted bus wreckage. Pierced by shrapnel and deafened by the blast which had punctured both her ear drums, Singer came home to Lakewood, N.J. to recover. When she did, she was more determined than ever to find ways to help victims of terror, among which she now numbered.

Singer, the daughter of New Jersey State Sen. Robert Singer, spoke with politicians and testified before Congress about the impact of terror on the people who experience it. In 2012, she founded Strength to Strength (www.stosglobal.org), an organization that would bring terror victims of all nationalities together and provide support and assist them with psychological support and with moving their lives forward.

Photo – caption: On a recent trip to Israel, Sarri Singer, of Lander College for Women, met with Chagit, the nurse who cared for her in the aftermath of a bus bombing 10 years ago. [TLS]