Middle of second seder in my Israeli yeshiva in Yerushalayim. My chavrusa got up for a minute, came back and told me. I thought he was joking so I insisted we keep on learning/batteling until another American walked by that I was sure knew. Reports were really erratic at first, which made things scarier. No one knew how many planes there were, what was hit, whether any were shot down. After seder the whole Yeshiva was made up of groups of guys huddled together talking in nervous whispers. I heard one English speaking Israeli repeat to his friends what he heard on the radio and ended his sentence in English, “both of the towers fell”.
I had took out my phone and for about 2 hours straight was just redialing my parents number until I got through and heard that Baruch Hashem they didn’t hear any bad news about anyone we knew or cared about. Later we learned that one relative who worked near Ground Zero was missing for about eight hours because he had to walk from Manhattan back home to New Jersey and couldn’t find a phone (cell phone service in NYC was suspended that day, and pay phones had hour long lines).