A year ago, Jeff Cohen and three others survived a hostage confrontation at their Reform Jewish synagogue in this Fort Worth suburb.
His trauma, however, did not go away with the FBI’s murder of the gun-wielding captor, 44-year-old British citizen Malik Faisal Akram.
Healing from the ordeal of January 15, 2022 continues to be an ongoing process.
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“Let’s be honest: We are healing. We are not healed,” said Cohen, 58, a Lockheed Martin engineer who serves as president of Beth Israel Congregation and its 140 family members.
The 10-hour standoff ended around 9 p.m. that Saturday when the remaining hostages, including Cohen, escaped and Akram was shot by the FBI tactical team.
The violence left the synagogue with smashed doors and windows, shattered glass and bullet holes. Within three months, the repairs were made and the congregation returned. But a year later, the deep wounds still ooze.
“We have a lot of people who are still feeling bad,” Cohen said as two fellow hostages, Lawrence Schwartz and Shane Woodward, nodded in the affirmative in a group interview at the synagogue. “We have parents who are not very comfortable taking their children to Sunday school.
“We have changed forever,” he added. “We had to get used to having security here all the time.”
The recent rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions nationwide has intensified both the congregation’s feelings of trauma and their determination to move forward without fear, said Anna Salton Eisen, founder of the synagogue and author of books about her parents’ survival of Holocaust.
“After the hostage crisis, I’m inspired to go out there and try to use this, along with the Holocaust, as inspiration to fight hate,” Eisen said.
It all started with a knock on the door. On a cold and windy Saturday, a man who appeared to be homeless appeared on the outskirts of Beth Israel.
The stranger immediately concerned Schwartz, who was helping Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker prepare for Shabbat morning service.
“I said, ‘I don’t like this,'” recalled the retired accountant, 87, who helped run security at his former synagogue. “I told him, ‘Charlie, don’t open the door.’ He went ahead and opened it.”
The temperature was hovering around freezing point and the wind made it feel even colder. Cytron-Walker showed compassion to the stranger, as his Jewish faith calls it, and invited Akram inside. They chatted and the rabbi made him tea.
Akram had spent time in homeless shelters in the Dallas area, but the cold wasn’t the reason he wanted to go to synagogue.
“I had no indication that he meant to harm us until I heard a gun click, which was about an hour after I met him,” said Cytron-Walker, 47, who had served at Beth Israel for 16 years. .
That click came around 11 a.m. as Cytron-Walker was praying in front of the sanctuary.
Jeff Cohen, one of four hostages in the 2022 attack on the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue near Fort Worth, shows a Facebook post he left under duress that warned his friends about the incident.
(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
The weather and the COVID-19 pandemic made for a light in-person crowd that day. While an unknown number watched online, only three other than the rabbi showed up in person: Cohen, Schwartz, and Woodward, who arrived a few minutes late.
Woodward, 47, listened to the first part of the service via Zoom on his record. She heard Cytron-Walker mention the guest.
After taking a seat, Woodward noticed Akram.
“I heard a lot of concern. He was kind of moving around,” said Woodward, who works for PepsiCo. “I waved to him and he was very polite. He waved back. He smiled, nodded… We were in the middle of a sentence when it happened.”
During the standoff, Akram demanded the release of a Pakistani woman who was serving a long prison sentence in Fort Worth after being found guilty of attempting to kill US troops.
The hostages said Akram cited anti-Semitic stereotypes, believing that Jews wield the kind of power that could liberate women.
“In CBI with a gunman,” Cohen posted on Facebook. “If I don’t go out, remember me. Fight the hate.”
Schwartz apparently reminded Akram of his father, and the gunman began calling him “dad.” At one point, he got permission from his captor to use the bathroom.
“He said, ‘I’ll let you go, but if you don’t come back, I’m going to kill these three guys,'” Schwartz recalled.
About six hours after the confrontation, Schwartz, who is hard of hearing, was told by his fellow hostages to leave. He didn’t understand at first. But they had talked Akram into releasing him.
Initially, Schwartz was upset. He didn’t want to leave them behind, but then he realized they had a better chance without him.
“I can’t move very fast,” Schwartz said. “They could run. But I can’t.”
Woodward grew up Baptist but was in the process of converting to Judaism. As the confrontation progressed, he commented, “Rabbi, I am still converting.”
“There’s no guarantee we’d get out of there, and this is what was going through his mind,” Cytron-Walker said with a smile. “Jeff turned around and said, ‘What?’ As we all come out, it’s really one of the fun moments.”
Hours later, Akram was increasingly agitated.
The hostages’ fears that he would shoot them increased.
“He was yelling at the negotiator, and when he hung up, he became very calm,” Cytron-Walker said. “He turned to us and I thought we were going to die. He asked us for some juice.”
After Cytron-Walker headed for the kitchen, Akram decided he’d prefer a soda. The rabbi returned with a can of soda and a plastic cup.
That’s when the chance to escape came.
“He was holding the liquid with one hand,” Cytron-Walker said. “For the first time all day, she didn’t have her hand on the trigger.”
The rabbi yelled “Run!” and threw a chair at Akram. They escaped through a side door.
Simultaneously and unknown to the hostages, the FBI team entered the building to attempt a rescue. Like the rabbi, the authorities were concerned about Akram’s state of mind.
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The hostages say Akram tried to shoot them as they ran, but his pistol misfired.
“I know that God was with us,” Woodward said.
Before the confrontation, Cytron-Walker had already interviewed for a new job as a rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The hostage crisis delayed that process, but he started his new job in July.
Even 1,100 miles away, “the events of January 15 continue to impact almost every aspect of my life,” he said.
From his sermon topics to his commitments to speak out on anti-Semitism to his recent opportunity to light the menorah at the White House Hanukkah reception, the hostage crisis looms large, Cytron-Walker said.
“I’m not having nightmares or anything resembling PTSD,” he said. “I never know if that could come up at some point, but I’m very grateful that it hasn’t happened yet.”
A year later, the hostages urge other houses of worship to take security training seriously. Cytron-Walker credits him for getting out safely.
But next time, Schwartz said, he would act on his concern and call 911.
“I don’t care if the congregation wants to kick me out. I don’t care if the rabbi never wants to speak to me again,” said Schwartz, who now wears a custom-made kippah emblazoned with “Stronger Than Hate.” ” on the back. “I should have operated my thoughts, and I didn’t.”
But Cytron-Walker said she doesn’t regret staying true to her faith.
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“It looked like I was a homeless man, and I continue to live with the fact that I was tricked,” he said. “We have to be able to live our values even when they are difficult.”
