Graphic by Anna Mueller
Julia Arboleda
News Reporter
On January 15, 2022, four people in a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas were held hostage for nearly eleven hours by a man named Malik Faisal Akram. The forty-four-year-old British national arrived in the United States in late December, allegedly spending three nights at a homeless shelter in Dallas in early January.
The day of the crisis, Akram was introduced to the synagogue’s vice president of the board of trustees, Jeffrey Cohen, who later described in a Facebook post that “[Akram] said hello, smiled, and after we introduced ourselves, I let him go back to his call. He seemed calm and happy to be in from the frigid 20-degree morning. His eyes weren’t darting around; his hands were open and calm, he said hello, he smiled.”
However, when the Saturday Shabbat service began, and Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker had his back facing Jerusalem in prayer, he heard the “unmistakable sound of an automatic slide engaging a round.” It came from Akram, and, in a matter of minutes, four people were taken hostage, including himself.
Rabbi Cytron-Walker’s quick dial to 911 prompted around 200 law enforcement agents to surround the synagogue; at the same time, the congregation members who watched the services from home due to the pandemic witnessed the event via livestream.
According to the FBI, Akram demanded the release of a convicted terrorist, thought to be a Pakistani woman named Aafia Siddiqui, who is currently serving an 86 year life sentence in the United States. Siddiqui has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and is believed to be “guilty of attempted murder and other charges in an assault on US officers in Afghanistan.”
Akram also voiced his anti-semitic views, claiming “Jews control the world. Jews control the media. Jews control the banks,” and that he “want[ed] to talk to the chief rabbi of the United States.”
By the tenth hour of the hostage crisis, Cytron-Walker saw his opportunity for escape when Akram grabbed a drink and his gun was far away. As he states, “there was a chair that was right in front of me. I told the guys to go, I picked it up, and I threw it at him with all the adrenaline […] It was absolutely terrifying, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be shot, and I did not hear a shot fired as I made it out the door.”
Thankfully, the congregation has participated in security courses prior to the event, learning how to approach situations like the one in which they found themselves. Cytron-Walker expressed his gratitude for the preparation that lent him, in that life-threatening moment, to help all four hostages exit the synagogue safely.
While this is certainly not the first anti-semitic hate crime in the United States, its violent and extreme nature struck a chord in our national community as well as our closer Newton community, where thirty percent of the population identifies as Jewish. It once again calls into question global views towards Jews and if/how Newton South can better respond to, or more proactively discuss, tragic events similar to what occurred in Texas.
