A 2024 documentary about a 2022 incident, in which a gunman held hostages in a Reform synagogue in Texas, has a lot to say about Jew-hatred in the present moment, according to the rabbi who was held hostage for 11 hours in the standoff.
“It speaks about and helps us understand a little bit more about the extremism in this world, the antisemitism we are facing,” Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, the rabbi who was held hostage in Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, on Jan. 15, 2022, told JNS ahead of a screening of “Colleyville” at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif., on June 9.
“The importance of security and security training, making sure that we have good emergency procedures, making sure that as many adults know what to do in an emergency,” he said. “We’re living in a society where most of our kids know what to do in an emergency situation. The adults need to learn it as well.”
The film serves as a reminder of the dangers of “when people believe the antisemitic lies,” Cytron-Walker added.
The documentary, which contains security footage from 2022 that hadn’t been seen publicly, does “a great job of highlighting a number of pieces that I think are really relevant for what we’re going through today,” the rabbi said.
Cytron-Walker, who is featured in the film, threw a chair at Malik Faisal Akram, the gunman whom law enforcement killed that day in 2022. The rabbi was one of four Jews held hostage.
“I feel incredibly fortunate,” Cytron-Walker, now the rabbi of Temple Emanuel, a Reform congregation in Winston-Salem, N.C., told JNS. “I’m not dwelling on it. I’m not replaying it.”
‘I love death’
Cytron-Walker was part of a panel after the June 9 screening hosted by StandWithUs, Magen Am and Hey Jude Productions. The event drew more than 200 people.
Dani Menken, a two-time Israeli Academy Award-winner, created the documentary, which runs about 90 minutes.
Akram, the gunman, forced Cytron-Walker to call a rabbi in New York to secure the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national who is serving an 86-year sentence for trying to kill U.S. soldiers and federal agents in Afghanistan. (Akram seemed to believe that the N.Y. rabbi had the power to set Siddiqui free.)
In the documentary, Akram can be heard saying repeatedly in security camera footage that “I love death more than you love life.”
Cytron-Walker told JNS that one of the main takeaways from the documentary is that people need love and support after experiencing trauma.
“After Colleyville, we got it,” he said. “After Oct. 7, so many in the Jewish world did not, and that was devastating.”
The rabbi said during a question-and-answer period after the screening that his fear levels were “up and down” throughout the day in 2022. He described experiencing “a heightened sense of awareness.”
Though he had been to half a dozen active-shooter training sessions, such experience didn’t teach him and the other hostages how to handle a situation with a bomb threat, according to Cytron-Walker. (For much of the day, the hostages believed that the gunman had a bomb on him.)
Jeffrey Cohen, one of the hostages, positioned himself as close to the emergency exits as possible, which Cytron-Walker said was “very, very important.” He added that they were all looking for the right moment to escape.
The hostages were able to escape when the rabbi threw a chair at the gunman. Cytron-Walker said he shouted at the others to run as soon as he threw it.
“I wanted them to know I was taking action,” he said during the panel discussion.
Once the hostages realized the gunman didn’t have a bomb on him and that there was a moment when his finger wasn’t on the trigger, “we didn’t need much time,” he said. “Only a matter of seconds.”
“I would not have had the courage to do that if not for the training,” Cytron-Walker said.
Cytron-Walker told JNS that after a gunman recently killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., and an attacker firebombed pro-Israel ralliers in Boulder, Colo., Jewish security organizations issued recommendations for dangerous situations.
“Every Jewish institution should be going through those guidelines and figuring out—are we doing this, and if we’re not, why not,” he said, “and what can we do to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to keep our community safe.”
The film is “really accessible to anyone who cares about the extremism in this country and the need to push back against it, not just in this country but worldwide,” Cytron-Walker said. “It is ultimately a hopeful story.”
“I am grateful that I’m able to teach about it and help people understand how this story is still relevant today,” he added.