Colleyville rabbi tells Congress houses of worship need more security funding

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker tells the US House Homeland Security Committee that synagogues and other Jewish institutions need more money to deal with security threats.

Walker is testifying at a hearing on security funding for Jewish institutions about a month after a gunman took him and others at a Colleyville, Texas synagogue hostage.

He says Congregation Beth Israel had undergone security training that helped him and others deal with the hostage situation and allow it to end with only the attacker being killed.

“I welcomed a terrorist into my congregation. I live with that responsibility,” he says, noting the Jewish precept of welcoming strangers.

“Security and hospitality can run hand in hand,” he says. “Despite all the plans and funding and courses, I still opened the door, but because of all of the plans and funding and courses… we were able to escape.”

But he notes that many small congregations like his don’t have the resources for security.

“There are far too many houses of worship that are just beginning the process we started six years ago,” he says. “Tragically we live in a world where all houses of worship need protection.”

Rabbi Yosef Konikov in Orlando says people are afraid to visit Jewish centers.

“Suddenly we’ve become occupied with trying to calm people from their immediate fears of physical threats. Each new attack on a place of worship only exacerbates their fears,” he says.

He says Nazis who rallied in Orlando two weeks earlier had demonstrated in front of his Chabad center for three hours late last year, scaring parishioners.

He also shares a flyer he says was distributed around Orlando blaming Jews for COVID-19.