Stephen Silver
Most Jews in Philadelphia, and the United States, remember where they were on Jan. 15, 2022, when a gunman held four people hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas.
After the 11-hour ordeal, the synagogue’s rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, threw a chair at the gunman, leading himself and the other hostages out the door before the FBI Hostage Rescue Team entered the synagogue and shot the gunman.
Just over a year ago, two artifacts from that day — the chair the rabbi threw, and the cup of tea he offered to the gunman — were donated to the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. And on April 27, Cytron-Walker visited Philadelphia and was reunited with those items for the first time.
“If this exhibit, if its presence here can help raise awareness, and bring attention, and call attention to the antisemitism that exists with our world, it’s very much a positive and hopefully, we’re going to start to see reductions of hate,” Cytron-Walker told the Jewish Exponent in an interview.
The museum approached Congregation Beth Israel shortly after the hostage situation about the items, and Josh Perelman, the museum’s chief curator, revealed that the FBI had to clear the chair before it was approved for donation to the museum.
Cytron-Walker has since switched pulpits, taking over last summer at Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He explained how the experience has changed how he views his work.
“It hasn’t really changed my approach to how I am a rabbi and who I am as a rabbi. It’s given me an opportunity to raise awareness about issues of security, raise awareness about issues of antisemitism … but in terms of my approach to the congregation, and the community, the importance of relationships, the importance of supporting one another, in every moment of life, the importance of being welcoming to all members of my community — that incident hasn’t impacted me in that respect.”
The incident has caused the rabbi to think about the balance between the Jewish commandment to welcome the stranger and concerns about security.
“It’s just affirmed the importance of No. 1, making sure that security protocols, emergency procedures, that these are things that a congregation or a community has thought about in advance- and that’s not just a Jewish thing, that’s an everybody thing,” he said. “We need to know what the emergency procedures … what happens in a community when everything doesn’t go right … and if you know that, and you’re prepared for those moments, then the welcome that you can give and the hospitality that can be offered, should come naturally, and should come wholeheartedly.”
The rabbi, who has family in the area, was in Philadelphia to see the artifacts, to meet with the local board of the Anti-Defamation League, and to participate in an event that evening at the Weitzman called “Faith in the Face of Hate.” Cytron-Walker and Reverend Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, were interviewed on stage by Jane Eisner, the director of academic affairs at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
“It is really, really hard to love the stranger,” Cytron-Walker added during the event. “But if we did a little bit more of loving the stranger, instead of demonizing, instead of casting aside, then we’d have a lot less people feeling estranged.”
Tyler’s church is a sister institution to the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where the white supremacist-inspired shooting in June 2015 killed nine worshipers; the two churches have been intertwined since early in the 19th century.
During the event, the rabbi and reverend both discussed the question of forgiveness, with Tyler noting that families of those lost in the Charleston shooting have taken different approaches, and that he respects the different reactions.
Cytron-Walker said he doesn’t speak the name of the man who took him hostage, and that while he feels compassion for the gunman’s family, “I have absolutely no emotion, for better or for worse, about the fact that he died.” He added that while Jewish people are “all over the map” on the death penalty, struggling with such questions is “what we’re supposed to do.”
The rabbi has testified before Congress three times, seeking greater security funding for nonprofit institutions, which led to a significant increase in such funding. He has also become a special adviser on security to the ADL.
“It’s important to know that it doesn’t matter where it happens,” Cytron-Walker said of antisemitism, citing Colleyville as an example. “It can happen anywhere, and we all feel it, the entirety of the Jewish people, the entirety of the Jewish community, feels it.” He added that, “We shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it, and also, what’s really important is not only that we ask others to stand up for us, but also to make sure that we stand up for others.”
Stephen Silver is a Philadelphia area freelance writer.
