Repaired Texas synagogue reopens months after hostage crisis

3 months ago, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three of his congregants were held at gunpoint in their Texas synagogue. Since then, new carpet has been laid in the sanctuary, the walls have been repainted, the entry retiled and new doors installed.

He said it has been healing to watch. “Each time I came back in, I got to see us moving forward,” Cytron-Walker said.

Congregation Beth Israel in the Fort Worth suburb of Colleyville will be rededicated on Friday, and members will celebrate Shabbat in their own building for the first time since the attack.

After a near 10-hour standoff, the day ended with the escape of the remaining hostages and an FBI tactical team rushing in and killing the gunman, the synagogue was left with broken doors and windows, bullet holes and shattered glass.

Anna Salton Eisen, a founder of the synagogue, said the scene reminded her of abandoned synagogues in Poland still marked with bullets from World War II that she saw while visiting that country in 1998 with her parents, both of whom are Holocaust survivors.

“I was standing in my synagogue this time, and it was just empty and silent and it showed the marks of the violence that had occurred,” Eisen said.

Eisen said the return will help the healing process. “We are not defeated and we are not going to live in fear,” she said. Leaders of the congregation made up of about 160 families said that as they return after holding services at a Methodist church during the repairs, they’ve been struck by the outpouring of love and support they’ve received.

They also want to focus on fighting antisemitism, which led the gunman to their synagogue. “It’s my hope and my prayer that there’s greater awareness about how damaging hate can be,” said Cytron-Walker, who starts a new job in July at Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.