It was minus six degrees in Colleyville, Texas, when Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker heard a knock on the window of Beth Israel Synagogue’s door. He paused his preparations for the Shabbat service to look outside, where he saw a man asking for help.
Malik Faisal Akram looked lost and cold, so Cytron-Walker invited the stranger inside to get warm. He made some tea and the two men got talking.
Though some details of Akram’s story didn’t seem to add up, the rabbi thought little of it. His congregation was known for being a welcoming place, so even an unexpected guest was welcomed in.
Before Covid, dozens of congregants would attend Beth Israel for Shabbat services, but since the pandemic most people had decided to participate online through a livestream.
This week, only a handful of worshippers were in the synagogue, with the majority taking part from home. Jeffrey Cohen did attend in person.
A regular at Beth Israel, he arrived early enough for Rabbi Charlie to introduce him to their guest. They greeted each other and smiled, and Akram returned to a phone call he’d been making beforehand.
Shabbat prayers proceeded as usual, and as they completed the Amidah, Cohen sat down. It was then that he heard the unmistakable sound of an automatic weapon engaging a round.
“It was out of place, and the building makes many strange sounds” he explained, so it caught his attention.
Cytron-Walker had his back to the congregation when he too heard the click: “I was a little suspicious when I heard that click, but I was hoping it wasn’t an actual gun,” he said.
The rabbi walked over to their guest to engage him in conversation, but Akram pulled a gun on him and started to shout commands to the terrified congregation.
The livestream was still going as Akram ranted about death. The authorities were quickly alerted. Jeff Cohen quietly grabbed his mobile phone and dialled 911, before slipping it screen-side down on a chair to make sure the emergency services could hear what was happening but Akram wouldn’t see the screen lit up.
Akram demanded to speak to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the leader of New York’s Central Synagogue, believing that she would be able to help free Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist and in-law of the chief architect of the 9/11 terror attacks. Akram called Siddiqui his “sister” but they’re not related.
Livestream viewers Googled Aafia Siddiqui, nicknamed Lady Al-Qaida, she is serving an 86-year prison sentence for attempted terrorism, and is being held in Carswell medical facility, which is part of Fort Worth federal prison, near Beth Israel Synagogue.
US officials once described her as “the most wanted woman in the world” and the US government have refused to trade her for American hostages multiple times.
Rabbi Buchdahl did speak with the terrorist twice, but of course could not satisfy his demands. Cohen explains that Akram “believed these antisemitic tropes, that the Jews control everything and if I go to the Jews they can pull the strings.
"He even said at one point, ‘I’m coming to you because I know President Biden will do things for the Jews. President Trump will do things for the Jews.’
"This guy really believed that if I go to the closest synagogue to medical facility, that if I go to the closest synagogue and I take Jews hostage, they will let this woman out.”
By 10.40am, a SWAT team had gathered outside. They set up a perimeter round the immediate area and moved people out of local houses. Backup support came shortly after, with the FBI mobilising to deal with the hostage situation.
A specialist hostage negotiation team was flown in from FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia on the east coast; 60 to 70 hostage specialists came in from Washington DC. Around 200 law enforcement officers responded throughout the day.
At first Akram proudly told negotiators: “We have no casualties, I am really happy with that,” and repeatedly said he didn’t want to shoot anyone.
But at times he also threatened: “If anyone tries to enter this building, everyone, everyone…” leaving the end of the sentence unspoken. “I’m sorry, bro,” he said to negotiators, “I’m pumped up. I’m armed up. Guess what? I will die. I will die… Are you listening?”
Devorah Titunik, 63, had overslept that morning so didn’t log-in to the online broadcast of the service as she would normally have done. Noticing her absence, a friend called to check if she was OK. “I went to the Facebook live feed and saw what was going on,” she told the JC. “It was horrifying… Jeff Cohen was someone I knew personally.”
“It was very scary, especially what the attacker was talking about, that he was going to die at the end of this and he loved death more than we love life.”
Back in the synagogue, Jeff Cohen kept calm and instead of going to the back of the room as instructed by Akram, he carefully stayed in line with one of the exits, thinking of a possible escape.
Throughout the rest of the day he made sure to stay as close to that door as he could, always looking for an opportunity to flee, and secretly whispering to another of the hostages to do the same.
By 2pm, around 9,000 people from all around the world were watching the livestream, when Facebook ended it suddenly. The hostages were still inside the synagogue. Jews around the world prayed for their safe release.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, Akram’s family were taken to their local police station in Blackburn. They were connected directly to the synagogue by phone, tasked with trying to calm him down.
Akram spoke with them by phone, a recording of which was obtained by the JC this week and posted online. They soon realised their attempts to make him stand down were futile, but believed he wouldn’t harm the hostages despite his repeated threats.
The FBI couldn’t be so certain. For most of the time they were trapped in the synagogue, the hostages spoke regularly with the FBI’s hostage negotiator, and made conversation with Akram.
They listened to him and tried to answer his questions, even sharing information about themselves with their attacker. “Every moment was terrifying,” said Rabbi Cytron-Walker.
Several hours into the crisis, the hostages were allowed to receieve pizzas. Seeing an opportunity, Cohen suggested to another hostage that he bring the food over, positioning them all within 20 feet of the exit door.
This, he hoped, would allow them a chance to escape. It seemed the negotiations were working when at five in the afternoon, one hostage was released.
But Akram wouldn’t release any others. Rabbi Cytron-Walker was left with two other men inside the synagogue.
Throughout the day, Akram flipped from one mood to another. Stacey Silverman, 53, listened in on the livestream for three hours before it dropped and described how at times Akram would say he recognised the rabbi was a good person and he didn’t want to kill them, adding that even in Islam blowing up a synagogue is outlawed.
But then he would suddenly switch to ranting about Israel and Palestine, threatening to kill the hostages because America only cares about Jews, Jews control the media and Jews control the world.
At one point he said: “Either there’s something wrong with me or there’s something wrong with America”.
At another moment, he insisted: “I’m not a sociopath, I have feeling, I have emotion, I’m human, I bleed.”
By the end of the day, Akram seemed tired. After 10 hours, he seemed to snap. He told the hostages to get on their knees. They feared the worst. That’s when Rabbi Cytron-Walker decided to act.
The Rabbi prepared the other hostages for escape, and as Akram briefly let down his guard for a moment, he threw a chair at the hostage taker. The men fled othrough the exit door they had been eyeing all day long. But Akram followed them brandishing a handgun. He dashed back into the building when he saw the sharpshooters outside, poised to shoot.
It was over. The hostages were free, and the terrorist was alone in the synagogue. The hostage rescue team breached the building.
A loud bang followed by what sounded like gunfire was heard at around 9.12pm.
Akram was killed in a shower of bullets. The siege was over.
