Dear Congregants:
I write with great concern as news of a highly dangerous situation has been shared in national news. Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, has four people, including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who’ve been taken hostage by an armed extremist. I have known this Rabbi since he was in the fifth grade and I was his youth group advisor while in college in East Lansing, Michigan.
I am afraid for Charlie’s life and that of all the hostages. I know his mom and his siblings and his friends going back to childhood. I want him and all the hostages returned to safety.
I am concerned for law enforcement and first responders and public safety personnel as they seek to end this crisis erupting in a synagogue near Dallas.
I know that Rabbi Caruso, Cantor Lapin, Rabbi Muhlbaum and Cantor Laureate Sager join me in our revulsion that a synagogue, which should be a place where we open our hearts and prayers, has become vulnerable today to extremists seeking demands and threatening violence. I also want to assure you that we are and have been taking steps to secure our synagogue locally and strengthen support for security of our facility within the Cleveland Jewish community and with local law enforcement.
With hope in our hearts, we ask your help in joining us us in prayer that the situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, TX, soon ends peacefully and without injury or loss of life.
Most especially, on this weekend where we’ve honored the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life was cut down too early by a gunman, we ask you to not let your hearts become filled with hatred and darkness, even as this horrible incident brings darkness to a sister synagogue. As Dr. King himself taught, “returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. “
Let our love and light shine more powerfully than hate and darkness and gun violence,
