World Trade Center

Will Sekzer doesn’t mince words when asked about the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. forces Sunday.

“I wish he could have succumbed in a more sustained way,” referring to a longer, slower death, “but a bullet in the head is good enough,” said the Vietnam war veteran and former New York police officer, whose son, Jason, then 31, never returned home from work at Cantor Fitzgerald at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Earlier this week, for reasons having nothing at all to do with the upcoming observance of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day)  this coming Sunday night and Monday, I found myself on the E train here in New York City.

The controversial Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero cleared a significant hurdle Tuesday when the city Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously declined to protect the 152-year-old building site on historic grounds.

But the Anti-Defamation League’s call for the center to be built elsewhere has touched off a controversy of its own, prompting criticism that the civil rights group is siding with bigotry and setting it apart from much of the organized Jewish community.