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Texas rabbi describes the trauma, sadness following Colleyville hostage-taking crisis at synagogue

The Congregation Beth Israel synagogue is shown, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday inside the temple. The hostages were able to escape and the hostage taker was killed. (Brandon Wade/AP)
The Congregation Beth Israel synagogue is shown, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022, in Colleyville, Texas. A man held hostages for more than 10 hours Saturday inside the temple. The hostages were able to escape and the hostage taker was killed. (Brandon Wade/AP)

Federal investigators are calling Saturday’s hostage-taking incident at a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue a “terrorism-related” attack as they try to find out more about the armed 44-year-old British national who kept a rabbi and three of his congregants captive for nearly 11 hours.

The attack played out live online as community members and others watched in horror. Eventually, the gunman was killed by law enforcement.

The standoff is the latest high-profile attack targeting Jewish people: 11 were killed in 2018 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; one person died and three were wounded at Chabad of Poway synagogue near San Diego in 2019.

But there were also lower-profile incidents, including arson at Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, Texas. That Temple’s rabbi, Steven Folberg, joins host Tonya Mosley to talk about the uptick in antisemitic events in the country.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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