Once I first noticed information on social media of a ranting man taking hostages at a Texas synagogue Saturday, I instantly clicked the hyperlink to an Related Press report.
To my shock, I found that the standoff concerned Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas.
I first wrote about that suburban congregation almost 20 years in the past once I coated faith for AP in Dallas.
In 2004, I did a nationwide characteristic on “frequent-flier rabbis” filling a necessity at then-fledgling Congregation Beth Israel and different small Jewish congregations throughout the nation. That very same 12 months, I wrote about Anna Salton Eisen, one of many congregation’s founders, and her Holocaust survivor father, George Lucius Salton.
Simply this previous October — 17 years later — Eisen trusted me to inform her household’s story once more. I wrote a follow-up piece for AP on a shocking “reunion” between Eisen and the youngsters of a number of Holocaust survivors who had been in focus camps collectively.
“I began this synagogue with two different households and am heartbroken and fearful,” Eisen wrote on Fb on Saturday. “What has turn into of the world?”
I shared her standing on my web page and requested my mates to wish for a peaceable finish. I used to be so relieved when Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and two different hostages escaped unhurt Saturday night time. A fourth hostage was launched earlier. The FBI hostage rescue crew shot the gunman.
For ReligionUnplugged.com, Cheryl Mann Bacon covers a therapeutic service the place Cytron-Walker spoke and Christians, Muslims and Jews gathered to wish after the hostage occasion.
The Washington Publish’s Michelle Boorstein and Faith Information Service’s Yonat Shimron provide extra perception on the interfaith progress revealed by the standoff.