Daniel Lewin: Jewish-American Israeli

Daniel Mark Lewin was a 31-year-old Jewish American-Israeli mathematician, computer scientist and entrepreneur whose life was cut short aboard American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11, 2001. 

Born May 14, 1970, in Denver, Colorado, Lewin moved with his family to Jerusalem at age 14 and became deeply bonded to Israel and his Jewish identity. 

He later served for four years as an officer in Sayeret Matkal, one of Israel’s elite special-operations units. 

After his military service, Lewin studied at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, graduating summa cum laude with degrees in mathematics and computer science, and continued his education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At MIT, Lewin developed mathematical algorithms that addressed the problem of Internet congestion and became fundamental to the technology behind Akamai Technologies. 

In 1998, he co-founded Akamai with MIT professor Tom Leighton and became the company’s chief technology officer. His work helped create a system for delivering Internet content more efficiently by distributing it across networks of servers. 

By the time of his death, Lewin was also a doctoral candidate at MIT. He was married to Anne Lewin and was the father of two young sons.

After Lewin boarded Flight 11 at Boston’s Logan International Airport for a business trip to Los Angeles on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the Boeing 767 was hijacked by five al-Qaida terrorists and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. 

According to the 9/11 Commission and evidence from the investigation, Lewin was seated near the front of the aircraft and even attempted to stop the hijackers. 

He was stabbed by Satam al-Suqami, who was seated behind him. Because the attack on Lewin happened before the plane struck the World Trade Center, he’s thought of as the first person killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Lewin’s story is important in Jewish and Israeli history because his life bridged the United States and Israel. 

He was born an American, raised in Jerusalem, served the State of Israel as an elite military officer and went on to make an important contribution to the development of the Internet. 

Jewish newspapers remembered him not only for his accomplishments in mathematics and technology, but also for his Jewish identity and devotion to Israel. 

Forward described Lewin as a Jewish American-Israeli whose work changed the Internet, while Israel’s military honored him as a veteran who died while attempting to stop the terrorists aboard Flight 11.

More than 20 years after his death, Lewin’s technological legacy remains part of the Internet infrastructure used around the world, though his personal story remains one of the lesser-known accounts of 9/11. 

The heroism of Lewin stands in stark contrast to why lawmakers are responding to a newly surfaced report revealing that Netanyahu was in fact warned that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was spearheading an attack on the Jewish people of Israel.

An investigation conducted for the new book Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment, researched by Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, reports that UAE President Sheikh

Mohamed bin Zayed called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a secure line about 10 days before Oct. 7, 2023. During the conversation, bin Zayed warned that Hamas leader Sinwar was preparing a major operation. 

Netanyahu reportedly responded calmly, saying he believed Hamas was more likely to act in the West Bank and assuring bin Zayed that Israel was prepared for any possible attack.

The investigation traces the warning to a secret Israel-Hamas channel, approved by Netanyahu, that had been negotiating a temporary truce and prisoner arrangement since early 2023. 

In September, Sinwar abruptly ended contact and told a Fatah intermediary to warn Israel that he was preparing “the mother of all surprises,” using the word “zilzal,” meaning “earthquake.” 

The warning reached an adviser to bin Zayed and was passed to then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, who briefed Netanyahu by phone on Sept. 15. 

A security meeting two days later ended without a decision.

Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel reportedly issued a separate warning around the same time, telling Netanyahu about “something unusual, a terrifying operation.” 

According to the investigation, Netanyahu responded that Israel’s focus and forces were on the West Bank rather than Gaza. 

On Oct. 1, Bar again recommended targeting senior Hamas leaders, including Sinwar. 

Netanyahu reportedly replied, “Prepare plans for me and I will consider them,” which a senior defense official characterized as his standard way of postponing a decision. 

The investigation says Netanyahu never disclosed the alleged bin Zayed warning to his security chiefs. A senior Shin Bet official told the authors that sharing it “could have changed our entire assessment picture.”

Netanyahu’s office has denied the report. The UAE has not directly confirmed the alleged conversation, but its Foreign Ministry said the two governments maintain open communication and that relevant intelligence is shared when necessary. 

Former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi have said they were not informed of the alleged warning. 

The report has received additional attention though, after an Emirati source familiar with the conversation confirmed it to Israeli media.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Netanyahu did not alert Israel’s security leadership, prepare the country for an attack or convene the cabinet, and argued that the full circumstances should be established through a state commission of inquiry. 

Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot likewise cited the report as further evidence of what he described as Netanyahu’s failure to respond to warnings before Oct. 7.

Regardless of how the situation came to be, the Nameless One himself acknowledges, “Three years into this war and no end in sight. 

“The ideological and the terror infrastructure that was built here for decades won’t be destroyed easily. The levels of dedication and creativity of our enemies to destroy Israel can only be matched with the insistence and creativity of the nation of Israel to destroy their plans. 

“Yet it always looks like the next attack or the next catastrophe is just around the corner. 

“You should have no illusions – all of our enemies are plotting and preparing and coordinating their next attack on all fronts simultaneously to overwhelm the Israeli army’s capabilities… 

“Strategically Israel is better than October 7 2023, and without a doubt Israel managed to overcome physical attacks and smear campaigns no other open society/democratic country in history had to endure. 

“We are strong and we have good reasons to be optimistic about our future.”

Indeed.