Former North Texas rabbi who was taken hostage at synagogue speaks at White House Hanukkah event

WASHINGTON — A former North Texas rabbi who was taken hostage at a synagogue earlier this year was a featured speaker at the White House on Monday night during a Hanukkah event.

A celebration was held as the White House added a menorah to its holiday collection that will be lit nightly during the eight-day Jewish holiday.

Charlie Cytron-Walker, who was a rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, spoke at the event nearly a year after he was taken hostage at the North Texas synagogue.

On Jan. 15, suspect Malik Faisal Akram held Cytron-Walker and three others at gunpoint inside the synagogue during a virtual ceremony. After one of the hostages was released, the rabbi helped lead the two others to safety.

Cytron-Walker threw a chair at Akram and he and the other hostages escaped through a side door. The suspect was then fatally shot when FBI agents entered the building.

At the White House event, the now-North Carolina rabbi spoke about the growing issue of antisemitism.

“Antisemitism may be on the rise, but thank God that people are standing by our side,” said Cytron-Walker, who is now a rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

President Joe Biden also addressed antisemitism and vowed to fight against it.

Speaking to guests gathered for the Hanukkah reception, Biden said “silence is complicity,” and added that it’s imperative that hate, violence and antisemitism are condemned by the nation.

“This year’s Hanukkah arrives in the midst of rising and emboldened antisemitism at home — and quite frankly, around the world,” Biden said. “I recognize your fear, your hurt, your worry that this vile and venom is becoming too normal.”

The president added: “I will not be silent. America will not be silent.”

The holiday celebration comes during a spate of antisemitic episodes. Former President Donald Trump hosted a Holocaust-denying white supremacist at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The rapper Ye expressed love for Adolf Hitler in an interview. Basketball star Kyrie Irving appeared to promote an antisemitic film on social media. Neo-Nazi trolls are clamoring to return to Twitter as new CEO Elon Musk grants “amnesty” to suspended accounts.

“Today, we must all say clearly and forcefully: Antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence in this country have no safe harbor in America,” Biden said.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, tracked 2,717 antisemitic instances of assault, harassment and vandalism last year, a 34% increase over the previous year and the highest number since the New York City-based group began tracking them in 1979.

Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, recently hosted a White House discussion on antisemitism and combating hate with Jewish leaders representing the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox denominations of the faith. At the event, Emhoff, who is Jewish, said he was “in pain right now” over rising antisemitism.

Among those invited to Monday’s White House event were Holocaust survivor Bronia Brandman; Michele Taylor, who is U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council and the daughter of Holocaust survivors; and Avigael Heschel-Aronson, the granddaughter of Jewish theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

While the White House has borrowed menorahs of special significance in the past, Biden said the addition was needed.

“This year we thought it was important to celebrate Hanukkah with another message of significance, permanence,” Biden said. “The very promise of America is that we all are created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our entire lives.”