On the eve of her 100th birthday Saturday, Ruth Salton told her daughter she was going one way or another to Friday night Shabbat services at Congregation Beth Israel, just days after a gunman voicing antisemitic conspiracy theories held four worshippers hostage for 10 hours at the Fort Worth-area synagogue.
“I want to support my people,” said Salton, a Holocaust survivor. She said she told her daughter “if she doesn’t take me, I’ll go by myself, because I feel I belong there.”
At synagogues around the U.S., Jewish leaders marked the first Sabbath since last weekend’s hostage-taking at Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, with a show of defiance against it and other acts of antisemitism. Many called for a strong turnout to show unity among the faithful, and rabbis, public officials and others spoke out during the Friday night and Saturday services against acts of hatred aimed at Jews.
At Beth Israel’s service Saturday, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and the three other people who were taken hostage last weekend stood in front of the congregation, linking arms as they sang the ritual blessings before and after the weekly reading of the Torah.
And at Friday night services marking the start of the Sabbath, or Shabbat, Cytron-Walker said: “The words Shabbat Shalom, to be able to offer that to each and every one of you, those words have never, never felt so good. While we have a lot of processing to do, God willing, the worst is over … and we can have a Shabbat of peace.”
Viewers of Beth Israel’s Facebook Live broadcast of its Saturday service sent greetings from Jerusalem, Florida, North Carolina and elsewhere.
Similar observances took place at other congregations.
“A terrorist tried to steal Shabbat from us last week. Claiming it this week is an act of resistance,” Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, of Central Synagogue in New York City, said during Friday night’s service.
During the standoff, the hostage-taker forced Cytron-Walker to call Buchdahl in a bid to win the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist convicted of trying to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan who is serving a lengthy prison sentence in Fort Worth, 15 miles southwest of Colleyville, according to authorities. Buchdahl reported the call to law enforcement.
Christian and Muslim clergy joined in Central Synagogue’s Friday service in a show of solidarity, linking arms and swaying with Buchdahl and Mayor Eric Adams as the congregation sang a song.
“Once again, we are facing the terror of all of the things that are happening in our city and country,” Adams said, recalling how New Yorkers rebounded after the Sept. 11 attacks. “In New York, this is our obligation: to get up again to make sure that people know that we are resilient.”
