WASHINGTON — The Colleyville, Texas, rabbi held hostage with three congregants by a man demanding release of a terrorist linked to al-Qaida urged Congress on Tuesday to provide more security funds for houses of worship.
“I am truly horrified that in our society today, religious leaders must devote themselves to security training. How to harden our facilities is both a necessary conversation, and anathema to religious ideals of hospitality and loving the stranger,” Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker told a House Homeland Security subcommittee.
“I am grateful to be here. To be honest, I’m grateful to be anywhere,” he said.
A recently upgraded camera system at Congregation Beth Israel gave the FBI critical information during the terrifying 10-hour standoff on Jan. 15. But Cytron-Walker noted that last year less than half the groups that sought funding under the Nonprofit Security Grant Program were approved.
“Every congregation needs to be prepared, yet the gap between the need and the funding is profound,” he said.
Congress provided $180 million this year for the security grant program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, double the 2020 allocation.
The White House-supported Build Back Better Act, approved on a party-line vote in the House in November, included another $100 million. Senate Republicans have blocked the measure.
Committee members in both parties agreed at Tuesday’s hearing on the need to expand the program, citing Colleyville as evidence that threats can erupt in unexpected places.
“Last month, the nation collectively held its breath as congregants at a Sabbath service in a Texas synagogue were held at gunpoint by a terrorist,” said Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., chairing the hearing. “Antisemitism and targeted violence against religious institutions has no place in the United States of America.”
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a national bulletin warning of potential copycat attacks, particularly by lone wolves inspired by online material from foreign terror groups.
“The recent attack on a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas highlights the continuing threat of violence based upon racial or religious motivations, as well as threats against faith-based organizations,” the bulletin says.
Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, the senior Republican on the intelligence and counterterrorism subcommittee holding the hearing, lauded Cytron-Walker for his quick thinking — throwing a chair at the gunman so that he and two other hostages could escape. The gunman was shot by FBI agents moments later.
“Jewish Americans are the target of nearly 60% of all religiously motivated hate crimes despite accounting for less than 2% of the total U.S. population,” Pfluger said. “You are a hero. And we are grateful for the bravery and courage that you showed.
“An attack on Jewish members of our community is an attack on the very pillars of the religious freedoms that our country was founded upon,” he said.
‘I welcomed a terrorist’
The British gunman, Malik Faisal Akram, 44, flew to New York in late December.
He spent time in homeless shelters in the Dallas area before turning up before the Saturday morning service at Beth Israel. Cytron-Walker was alone with one congregant at that point. He looked the man over, invited him in, served tea, chatted to see if he appeared nervous.
“He appeared to be who he said he was — a guy who had spent a night outside in sub-40-degree weather,” the rabbi said. “I welcomed a terrorist into my congregation. I live with that responsibility. ... I spent time to see if there were any red flags. I didn’t see any. Of course, I was wrong.”
Akram had bought a handgun, a semi-automatic Taurus G2C pistol, two days earlier.
He’d told his brother in Britain that “I’m coming back home in a body bag.”
He’d scoured the internet choosing a target near the Fort Worth federal prison hospital where an inmate known as “Lady al Qaeda,” Aafia Siddiqui, is serving an 86-year prison sentence for attempted murder of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in 2008.
The rabbi knew none of this when he welcomed Akram into the synagogue. Then Akram pulled the gun, demanding a conversation with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, senior rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York City, and a prominent leader in Reform Judaism. She spoke with him twice during the standoff.
Akram had somehow become convinced that Buchdahl had the connections and pull to secure Siddiqui’s release.
“He was very focused on this idea that Jews control the world. Jews can pull the strings, that I could call that the chief rabbi of America as far as he was concerned,” Cytron-Walker told lawmakers. “Rabbi Buchdahl is absolutely amazing. But we don’t have a chief rabbi in America.”
“That was his singular focus. That idea that Jews control the world, the Jews control the media, the Jews control government, the Jews control everything — that was reality for him,” he said.
“The height of antisemitism,” responded Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
Akram had released one of the four hostages hours before the rabbi’s split-second decision to throw the chair. He credits security training he’d undergone last year, and close collaboration and exercises with police.
“I was literally texting and emailing with the chief of the Colleyville police during those horrible, horrible hours,” Cytron-Walker recalled.
Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America and a former Ohio congressman, explained steps his group and others have taken to organize security training.
But he said: “It is critical that we have the funds to protect all members of the Jewish community, no matter where they live. FEMA’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program provides that essential public-private partnership to extend what we are already doing for ourselves.”
He and others urged lawmakers to streamline the paperwork demanded of grant applicants, and improve FEMA’s ability to address a growing problem.
The program helps nonprofits — not just Jewish houses of worship — buy bulletproof doors, shatterproof glass, barriers, surveillance systems and improved cybersecurity. It supports preparedness and prevention training and partnerships with law enforcement.
“The training can literally be the difference between life and death,” testified Michael Masters, national director and CEO of Secure Community Network. His group provides training to Jewish institutions, including a session in Tarrant County on Aug. 22, 2021, that Cytron-Walker and 21 congregants attended.
“There is a lesson to be learned from Colleyville,” Masters told lawmakers. “We will not choose the time and place of the next incident. ... Every member of our faith-based communities must be trained. Our efforts must be professional, specific and ongoing, just like we do with fire drills.”
He highlighted the confusing bureaucracy that stands between nonprofits and FEMA’s security grants. For instance, the list of what the funds can be used for has not been tailored for faith-based institutions. (Snorkels, hazmat suits and welding equipment are listed along with things like alarm systems.)
“It’s the same authorized equipment list if I was running a major gas refinery,” he said.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., asked about the role of extremism in security planning.
“Whether they are white supremacists or neo-Nazis ... it doesn’t matter what the ideology is that’s coming through the door,” Masters said, adding that antisemitism is 3,000 years old. “We need to make sure that the door is blocked.”
Witnesses and lawmakers noted that violence has afflicted worshippers of many faiths in recent years. Cytron-Walker recalled the 2017 massacre at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, where a gunman killed 26 people.
“So horrible. That happened in our state and it … touched all of us,” he said. “Our status quo is not OK.”
He urged lawmakers to realize how hard it is for smaller churches, mosques and temples to assess their security needs, let alone address them.
“You don’t really have the bandwidth,” he said, adding that Beth Israel was fortunate that a congregant stepped up and spent hours figuring out the FEMA grant. “It’s a really, really hard thing to have a dedicated group of volunteers focused on security issues that may never happen.”
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