His eyes weren’t darting around his hands were open and calm, he said hello, he smiled.”īecause of the recent coronavirus surge, many of Congregation Beth Israel’s members had stayed home on Saturday to watch the weekly prayers via Facebook or Zoom. He seemed calm and happy to be in from the frigid 20 degree morning. “He said hello, smiled, and after we introduced ourselves, I let him go back to his call. “He was on the phone, but briefly stopped his conversation,” Cohen said. Cohen went over and introduced himself, he wrote in a Facebook post describing his experience. The rabbi pointed Jeffrey Cohen, the vice president on the synagogue’s board of trustees, to their guest that day.
“Some of his story didn’t quite add up, so I was a little bit curious, but that’s not necessarily an uncommon thing,” said the rabbi, who soon that day would lead a religious service for the 157 membership families of his congregation, established in 1999. Over their shared tea, Cytron-Walker and Akram talked, the rabbi said. He was very quiet and wasn’t there long enough to build any relationships, Butler said. In the two weeks before he met Cytron-Walker, Akram had spent three nights – January 6, 11 and 13 – at a Dallas homeless shelter, according to Union Gospel Mission Dallas CEO Bruce Butler. The FBI is investigating the Texas hostage standoff as a 'terrorism-related' incident, the agency says (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Brandon Bell/Getty Images Yesterday, police responded to a hostage situation after reports of a man with a gun was holding people captive. All four people who were held hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue have been safely released after more than 10 hours of being held captive by a gunman. Kennedy International Airport in late December, a US law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.ĬOLLEYVILLE, TEXAS - JANUARY 16: A law enforcement vehicle sits near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Januin Colleyville, Texas. Akram had arrived in the US via New York’s John F. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker welcomed in the man and made him a cup of tea, the rabbi told CBS on Monday.Ĭytron-Walker may not have known immediately that Malik Faisal Akram, 44, was a British national. But already, the tale is one of searing trauma, with the broader American Jewish community now again forced to be resilient as it’s reminded of the ever-present potential for disaster.Ī stranger arrived that morning at the synagogue. More details may yet offer a deeper understanding of why it happened. It started like most any Saturday for members of Congregation Beth Israel.įamilies of the Reform Jewish synagogue just outside Dallas-Fort Worth had gathered – in person and online – to participate in the Sabbath service, even amid the twin perils of a fresh pandemic wave and a swelling tide of attacks on Jewish people in the United States.īy day’s end, the community of faith in Colleyville, Texas, would be at the center of a global drama involving a livestreamed hostage-taking, an imprisoned terrorist icon, an elite FBI rescue team, a rabbi’s quick thinking and a final, frantic sprint to freedom.
0 kommentar(er)
