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Micah Lakin Avni
Turning Trauma into Triumph: New Narratives for a New Israel

9/11 — The Day Israel Lost Her Future Prime Minister

Fifteen years ago today, my friend Danny Lewin was murdered by Jihadi terrorists aboard American Airlines Flight 11. He was 31-years-old. According to the 9/11 Commission, Danny was stabbed by one of the hijackers seated directly behind him. The commission speculated that this may have occurred during an attempt to confront one of the terrorists in front of him, not realizing that there was an additional assailant just behind him. I knew Danny well; there is no question in my mind that he fought the terrorists on Flight 11. His DNA was hardwired that way.

Our family moved to Israel in the summer of 1984. We arrived directly to the absorption center in Mevaseret Zion outside of Jerusalem. The Lewins arrived shortly before us. Danny and I immediately become close friends. We played in a rock band together, worked in a pizza place together, explored the old city of Jerusalem together, traveled the country together, etc. I remember the night that Danny met his wife. I remember how they danced. It took him about 30 seconds to forget that there was anyone else in the room.

Danny’s murder was my first experience in mourning. It felt like a private matter, and I resolved to keep it that way. Over the years, I have declined numerous interviews about his life.

Much has been written about Danny over the past 15 years; most of it quite accurate. Danny was indeed larger than life: smarter, stronger, more driven, more charismatic, and more energetic than anyone that I have ever met.  He had an IQ so high that it probably could not be measured and enough testosterone to fuel an entire professional football team.  Danny was both a titan and a brontosaurus packed into one powerful package.  His achievements attested to this: an officer in the Israeli Special Forces, top of his class at the Technion and MIT, and a technology entrepreneur who built Akamai Technologies into a multi-billion dollar company that made the Internet faster and more reliable.

After my father, Richard Lakin, was brutally murdered by Jihadi terrorists on a public bus in Jerusalem 10 months ago, I decided to revisit my decision to mourn privately. The spread of terror is not a private issue, it is a public issue; a very real threat endangering the future of our Western Judeo-Christian way of life. I came to understand that victims of terror become public figures in their death — even if this is not comfortable for their families and friends.  Their storied must be told, and their memories must be memorialized, in a very public way.  These stories personalize the threat of terror, highlight the cardinal importance of the challenges that we face, and force us to address them.

Although Danny’s public legacy is fairly accurate, there is a piece of the story that has not been emphasized enough: Danny was an ardent Zionist who was dedicated to the State of Israel. Although circumstances found him in Boston, Danny yearned to return to Israel.

During 2000, I went to visit Danny in Boston. We took a long walk along the Charles River and had lunch at a little Cuban restaurant. After lunch we stood outside looking up at the Akamai Building. Danny had taken over one of the MIT buildings and made it Akamai’s headquarters. He was reveling in his power — the lightning bolts were shooting from his eyes — anything was possible. We spoke of the future: Danny’s future and the future of the State of Israel. We had a long conversation about the need for electoral reform in Israel, which we both viewed as core to the country’s long term survival. We talked about how the current electoral system renders the government almost dysfunctional, and how we expected this problem to get worse. I was concerned. Danny had a solution: Eventually he would return to Israel, we would set up a political party, and he would become Prime Minister. It’s simple he said, I will spend hundreds of millions of dollars of my own money on the election campaign, we will win an absolute majority in Knesset, change the electoral system and then get to work dealing with all of the other challenges facing the country.

Danny spoke with a level of obstreperous conviction that only he could stoke up. I have no doubt that if he had not been murdered on 9/11, Danny would have eventually returned to Israel, and he would have become Prime Minister.

Fifteen years ago today I lost a dear friend. The State of Israel lost a leader.

I miss you, buddy.

About the Author
Micah Lakin Avni founded Peninsula Group Ltd., a publicly-traded Israeli commercial finance institution and served as CEO for 18 years. He was ranked among the 100 most influential people in Israel by The Marker Magazine in 2015, 2016 and 2018. Prior to founding Peninsula, Micah served as a General Partner with Jerusalem Global Ventures, and Israeli venture capital firm. Before joining Jerusalem Global Ventures, Micah was a corporate attorney with Yigal Arnon & Co., one of Israel's premier law firms. Micah serves in a volunteer capacity as the chairman of "Voices of Israel”, a long-term partnership between the State of Israel and the global pro-Israel leadership to facilitate ongoing strategic cooperation, counter the global Israel delegitimization movement and improve Israel's positive image and standing in world public opinion. In 2015, Micah’s father Richard Lakin was murdered by Hamas terrorists on a Jerusalem bus. While mourning the loss, Micah dedicated himself to raising awareness of the dangers of allowing terrorists to roam free on social media, communicating, recruiting, and inciting. He wrote op-eds in international newspapers, gave interviews, helped produce movies, lectured at universities, filed lawsuits and lobbied for legislation. These efforts helped set in motion a campaign that yielded dramatic change: While there is still plenty of work to be done, social media titans built significant infrastructures to remove terror groups from their platforms. Micah holds an LLB in Law from the Hebrew University Law School and a joint MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati School of Business Administration at Tel Aviv University. Micah lives in Tel Aviv, Israel with his wife and four children.