(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Yesterday, police responded to a hostage situation after reports of a man with a gun was holding people captive. All four people who were held hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue have been safely released after more than 10 hours of being held captive by a gunman. Kennedy International Airport in late December, a US law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CNN.ĬOLLEYVILLE, TEXAS - JANUARY 16: A law enforcement vehicle sits near the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Januin Colleyville, Texas. Akram had arrived in the US via New York’s John F.

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker welcomed in the man and made him a cup of tea, the rabbi told CBS on Monday.Ĭytron-Walker may not have known immediately that Malik Faisal Akram, 44, was a British national. But already, the tale is one of searing trauma, with the broader American Jewish community now again forced to be resilient as it’s reminded of the ever-present potential for disaster.Ī stranger arrived that morning at the synagogue. More details may yet offer a deeper understanding of why it happened. It started like most any Saturday for members of Congregation Beth Israel.įamilies of the Reform Jewish synagogue just outside Dallas-Fort Worth had gathered – in person and online – to participate in the Sabbath service, even amid the twin perils of a fresh pandemic wave and a swelling tide of attacks on Jewish people in the United States.īy day’s end, the community of faith in Colleyville, Texas, would be at the center of a global drama involving a livestreamed hostage-taking, an imprisoned terrorist icon, an elite FBI rescue team, a rabbi’s quick thinking and a final, frantic sprint to freedom.

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