OT: Rabbi In The Texas Synagogue Hostage Standoff Is '98 Michigan Grad
“I threw a chair at the gunman and I headed for the door,” Cytron-Walker said. “And all three of us were able to get out without even a shot being fired.”
Originally from Lansing, Michigan, Cytron-Walker is a married father of two daughters who became the Reform synagogue’s first full-time rabbi in 2006.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:04 PM ^
A jew coming from UofM?! Never?!
In all seriousness, good on him and he represents Michigan well.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:08 PM ^
It's funny how different my reactions to this post will/would be if you are or are not Jewish...
January 17th, 2022 at 6:33 PM ^
Could also be a Tim Whatley.
January 17th, 2022 at 10:06 PM ^
"This offends you as a Jewish person?"
"No, it offends me as a comedian!"
January 17th, 2022 at 5:29 PM ^
I don’t read this in a positive light. Explain please.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:47 PM ^
Eh, it's fine. We're well aware that there are lots of us at Michigan, and well represented in Michigan media. He wasn't meaning it like it's a bad thing.
January 17th, 2022 at 8:35 PM ^
Not the hard J?
January 17th, 2022 at 8:39 PM ^
I had always heard that when the Ivy League schools put a limit on the percentage of Jews they would admit it was a major boost to UofM because it opened up a strong pipeline of high achieving east coast students to UofM and increased its academic reputation. UofM has long had a higher percentage of Jews in its student body than would be expected from the general population in the midwest. I thought that was general knowledge at UofM. I have no doubt that m1817 knew that and his comment was sarcastically referring to anyone's surprise that the Rabi was from UofM.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:54 PM ^
Meanwhile the FBI couldn’t figure out a motive the attack. I bet our brave U of M alum could.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:56 PM ^
Ohio State was behind this?
January 17th, 2022 at 6:16 PM ^
I’ll take a stab. He was indoctrinated by propaganda and a dogmatic interpretation of religion fostered by leaders who care only for power. Add in some conspiracy theories, lack of proper education, and limited access to members of the hated community to form personal and empathetic relationships and you have your motivation for…
January 17th, 2022 at 6:29 PM ^
maybe it's the internet, but 4god my comment was rhetorical. it was a hate crime targeting a specific and hopefully beloved part of our culture and it is absurd when things that are so painfully obvious are intentionally garbled. how do you fight that kind of hate when 'you' (euphemistically) refuse to point out the true genesis or motives of that hate? it fails the victim community and should be called out, mocked, and ridiculed until candor and honesty is the result.
January 17th, 2022 at 6:42 PM ^
I don't understand this "can't find a motive" narrative. I read from the very beginning that he was trying to use the hostages to get a fellow terrorist released from jail - a common tactic in the world of terror. Are you saying that is not correct? You could be right but I haven't heard anything different.
Unfortunately, Jewish people and their gathering places have been a traditional target for "religiously" motivated terrorism going back hundreds of years. Is there some other conspiracy theory out there?
January 17th, 2022 at 6:49 PM ^
the FBI's original statement, which got roundly and rightly ridiculed, said the motive was unclear in that they intentionally refused to call it what it was, a hate crime targeting our jewish brothers and sisters. they said it was 'singularly focused on one issue' and not 'specifically related to the jewish community'. they then reassured all of us with: 'we are continuing to work to find motive'. that was a flat out lie and they knew it. the motive was as plan as the nose on our collective faces.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:16 PM ^
Seems obvious to me that they were saying that the "motive" was the release of the other terrorist and was not specific to the "Jewish community" as opposed to a motive of "Israel / Palestine" or something else that could be said to be "specific to the Jewish community".
Sloppy communication - sure. Outright lie? Well, that would mean that the motive wasn't the release of the other terrorist. You are basically saying that they didn't communicate the way that you would have liked so now it part of some broader cultural conflict presumably between the left and the right wings of American politics. Sounds to me like you like to turn every big and small issue in life into a culture war issue.
Not sure why I am even involving myself in this chain. You are likely some sort of "culture warrior" a concept that I despise whether it is on the left or the right. So Peace Out.
January 17th, 2022 at 8:12 PM ^
who said anything about 'left v. right'? that's manure. anybody with 1/4 of a brain knows the motive. this is a religious conflict that goes back to the 7th century. the jewish community in texas is something like .07% of the population, but amazingly, i mean amazingly (this is sarcasm) he happened to walk into a synagogue.
and what a hypocrite you are, to call me an undeserved and inaccurate name, but then say 'peace out' shame on you for your lack of character.
January 17th, 2022 at 9:54 PM ^
Correction for technical accuracy. Thousands of years. Carry on ...
January 18th, 2022 at 10:47 AM ^
Perhaps he was concerned about climate change and wanted the Jews to turn off their weather machine? Or is it a space laser now... hard to keep up these days.
January 17th, 2022 at 6:44 PM ^
Who are you referring to? The FBI's official statement has labeled this as "a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted..."
January 17th, 2022 at 6:50 PM ^
that was their modified statement after they got called out.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:00 PM ^
Got it. Seems less like a politically motivated omission than a LEO with insufficient media training speaking in advance of his organization.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:13 PM ^
we can agree to disagree on that second sentence. to use a real life analogy, when we would roll up on a gang shooting back in the day, the 'motive' was instantly obvious and we wouldn't lie to the media saying we didn't know or were unsure about the shooters'/killers' motives.
the synagogue shooting had a painfully obvious motive. to say anything other than that actual obvious motive, if you are going to make any comment upon it, is true 'misinformation'.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:56 PM ^
I hear you. I have no experience with what anyone did on gang shootings in previous times, but it seems now to be SOP in that the FBI and local police have shown themselves to be generally reluctant to attribute motives when the rest of us find them obvious obvious. Gilroy mass shooting (obviously terrorism)? No known motive. Las Vegas mass shooting (obviously terrorism)... no known motive. Pulse nightclub shooting (obviously anti-gay terrorism)... no known motive. Wisconsin mass shooting (obviously anti-Sikh terrorism)... no known motive... They are so afraid that they might ultimately be wrong that they err on the side of making no judgements at all. It's the regrettable consequence to all the false allegations and attributions that came after 9/11.
January 18th, 2022 at 8:54 AM ^
You have no clue what the motive for the Vegas shooting was. It is NOT obvious. There is no coherent story of what happened there.
January 17th, 2022 at 8:56 PM ^
I read an article today where his brother was interviewed and tried to distance himself from any family connection of anti-semitism and said the guy was clearly mentally ill. I think both can be true: he's mentally ill and anti-semitic. I didn't see his actions as the classic "I hate Jews, kill all the Jews!" type of thing but more of a "Jews are expendable and if a few get killed during my mission, that's fine with me, they probably deserve it" type of thing. Either way, anti-semitism at work.
January 17th, 2022 at 9:24 PM ^
Wait, so is this XM the same as the other XM? Am I a moron for not realizing something so obvious, or a moron for confusing two different MGoBlog posters?
January 18th, 2022 at 1:59 AM ^
The former
January 17th, 2022 at 8:40 PM ^
Curios what label you would give Jan 6? And why an entire political party refuses to call it what it really was? And if that bothers you as much as one FBI spokesperson not immediately referring to something in words you assume are true because you saw the terrorists name . At least the agent was corrected vs the aforementioned political party who stands by a HUGE lie that continues to erode our democracy. Yeah, but the one FBI agent is part of a greater conspiracy. Give me a fucking break with the bs.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:23 PM ^
So JFK Jr.? Got it.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:04 PM ^
Such a crazy story. No match for a mighty Michigan Man.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:13 PM ^
I've been seeing quite a bit of conversation about this from my rabbi (also a Michigan grad) and quite a few of my friends who are very engaged in the Jewish community and know the rabbi in Texas.
It's really quite jarring (and sad) to be greeted by so much security and police at pretty much every Jewish religious, charitable, or social event that I attend.
Jarring in that one should be able to observe one's religion without having to worry about being gunned down. Sad that anti-Semitism is so prevelant in our society.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:38 PM ^
An article in this vein related to this awful terrorist incident in Texas that some may find interesting: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/being-jewish-in-an-unraveling-america
If you DON'T think you'd find it interesting it's ok to skip it and move on.
January 17th, 2022 at 6:23 PM ^
Meh. Not the best place to inject a heavily partisan political view into the mix of a good Michigan story. To the extent this story isn't being "treated the same" as the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue, that's probably because 11 people were murdered in that one whereas this one had a happy ending.
January 17th, 2022 at 8:44 PM ^
The problem is not necessarily the message but the messenger.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:57 PM ^
At least in this instance, this now-dead psycho came from England so his hate was imported.
January 17th, 2022 at 6:44 PM ^
Given his history, he should have been on the no fly list.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:08 PM ^
i think i read somewhere that he may have been denied a visa a few years ago but then the rules changed last january or february, so he was able to come over.
January 17th, 2022 at 8:43 PM ^
A few years back, some idiots decided to host an anti-Israel protest outside of Temple Israel and the JCC in West Bloomfield. You also have the idiots in Ann Arbor who protest outside of one temple every Saturday. Quite disgusting. Most temples have armed security guards regularly and plain clothes police officers on the High Holy Days.
January 18th, 2022 at 7:59 PM ^
I agree - it really is jarring to have an armed police officer at services, police cars patrolling through our out of the way parking lot at various times of the day, having the doors to the synagogue locked 24/7, and having to show an ID badge to enter the building. We did not have any of this five years ago.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:15 PM ^
I was happy and relieved to hear that no one except the gunman was hurt in this incident.
I was also happy to learn that the rabbi is a friend of the Muslim community and that the latter spoke out in support of him and his congregation.
January 17th, 2022 at 9:14 PM ^
Thank you. This was the best comment on this thread for me.
January 18th, 2022 at 8:57 AM ^
One of the only appropriate comments in response to this thread. ???
January 17th, 2022 at 5:15 PM ^
What a blessing.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:29 PM ^
A true hero - The Michigan Difference!
January 17th, 2022 at 6:52 PM ^
He was a UM grad, but learned to throw chairs from Bobby Knight. A hero nonetheless.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:44 PM ^
Everyone is safe now, thankfully.
With the age gap I didn't know him personally, but I know lots of people who do. My friend group from high school has been tracking it closely because the core of the group are 2 years older than me, and Charlie was a quasi-celebrity in that community of young reform Jews who wanted to fix the world. They talk about Charlie as one of those people that if he was catholic would be a candidate for sainthood. He's done all kinds of social justice and food justice work. He's *the* standard that any friends of mine who became rabbis hold themselves to.
Charlie was a senior/the president of my youth group the year before I started high school, so we only overlapped at the orientation event, but I remember him doing a funny song to try to sell the youth group's name change.
I do have one Charlie story. He had an "Oh no, Acid Rain!" t-shirt that was covered in holes, and he left that shirt to become the traditional garb of the president whenever conducting "official" business. A couple of my good friends--one of whom you interact with here sometimes--got to wear the shirt for a year of events during their presidencies.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:16 PM ^
I was reading his bio on the temple's website and what stuck out to me was his mission of inclusivity. I applaud any religious leader who respects all religions and welcomes them into their house of worship. We need more of these kinds of leaders.
January 17th, 2022 at 8:09 PM ^
I knew him (as an acquaintance) when I was at Michigan. He’s a good dude. Several friends of mine have mentioned that, although they didn’t know him well, they remembered that he had inspired them to get involved with service projects that they otherwise wouldn’t have taken on.