Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker is being hailed as a hero for his leadership when a gunman entered the sabbath service at his Colleyville, Texas, Reform temple last Saturday and took Cytron-Walker and three others hostage. After an 11-hour standoff, Cytron-Walker reportedly threw a chair at the man to facilitate an escape. The hostagetaker was killed.
There are reports today that the synagogue had been divided by Cytron-Walker’s dovish stance on Israel, including a report that he said that Israel is an apartheid state. That report has been picked up by pro-Israel media citing a Facebook post by Itamar Gelbman, of Austin, TX:
This is my old synagogue, I left due to a few issues, first, the Rabbi called Israel an apartheid state against Islam, and a second, he didn’t allow his members (including myself) to be armed during services. Now he is held hostage by a Muslim man with a gun…
The Forward reports today that Cytron-Walker resigned from his position last fall, by one account after the synagogue board voted not to renew his contract. He is due to leave the synagogue in June. The Forward says that Cytron-Walker was very popular in his congregation and the newspaper could not establish the reasons for opposition to the renewal of his contract. Though it cited his social justice work and the Gelbman post.
The rabbi is known for his social-justice advocacy and interfaith bridge building. A man claiming to be a former member of the synagogue said he had left the congregation because Cytron-Walker referred to Israel as an apartheid state and did not allow guns in the shul, a claim picked up by right-wing media but not otherwise confirmed. “They would not tell us why they want him to resign,” Sandy Barenholtz-Silverman, who attended Beth Israel, said of the synagogue’s leadership.
[Update. Cytron-Walker “does not believe Israel is an apartheid state,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports. It quotes him: “’When I teach about Israel, I teach about how Israel is complicated. I’m a huge supporter of Israel,’ he said, noting that the synagogue’s education program works with the Ofek Learning Hub to have Israeli teachers leading online learning for youth programs, and that ‘we sing ‘Hatikvah” [the Israeli national anthem] at the end of every religious school.’”]
Cytron-Walker signed a letter organized by a liberal Zionist organization in 2020 opposing Israeli government plans to annex the West Bank. That letter doesn’t refer to apartheid, but calls annexation a “catastrophic mistake” and says it would put “Israel in flagrant violation of international laws and undermine Israel’s status as a democracy.”
Apartheid accusations were leveled against Israel last year by two leading human rights groups–Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem— after years in which Palestinians and others made the charge.
Growing western acceptance of the term apartheid has divided U.S. Jews broadly and helped to diminish support for Israel in that community, its most important foreign backers. A 2021 poll showed that 25 percent of American Jews regard Israel as an apartheid state, and that fraction goes up to 38 percent of Jews under 40.
There is now a strong chorus inside the Jewish community of those who use the apartheid word. The young anti-occupation group IfNotNow says it’s apartheid. So does the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace. So does the chair of Americans for Peace Now, James Klutznick.
The term has been angrily resisted by Israel supporters, including liberal Zionists. The country’s foreign minister has described the “venom” and “radioactivity” of the charge as a strategic threat to Israel. Last year a Florida Jewish congressman accused fellow Democrat Rashida Tlaib of antisemitism because she dared to quote the Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem reports on apartheid on the House floor.
Thanks to Dave Reed and Adam Horowitz.
Dear Phil,
I have been following MW for years.
The new changes made to the site have substantially decreased engagement.
There used to be hundreds of comments. We used to be able to properly search commentator archives.
The MW comments’ section was a place to get educated by people like talknic, hostage, etc.
Now, no one is here and there’s no way to properly search the website or comments.
People will pay just to have those features back. MW is the best news site there is on this issue and the commentary makes it unique – not so much the content itself.
But now, you’ve down-graded the significance of your website for what I assume are maintenance costs?
Or did someone higher on the food chain take issue with the comments?
How many years more do you think MW should go without basic site functionality?
People keep supporting you because you’re the only show in town – but is it fair?
This is such a small rrequest that has a huge impact.
He is also supposed to have reached out to the Muslim community and made efforts to have good relations with them. He seems a very nice human being, and we need more religious leaders like him.
Shaul Magid, the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, in his 2012 editorial in The Times of Israel:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/dani-dayans-service-to-the-left/
The hasbara industry tell us that Israel wants to make peace, that if we had a peace partner, Israel would make the “painful comprises” to ensure a just settlement. The hasbara industry tells us the “settlements are not the problem,” that the settlers would willfully leave if they believed a secure resolution to the conflict was in the offing. The hasbara industry tells us that the reason there is no Palestinian state is because the Palestinian leadership, and the Palestinian people, do not want it or will not accept the necessary conditions for such a state to exist….In this reading, Israel is a democratic country with a Declaration of Independence ensuring the rights of all its citizens regardless of “race or religion” that, in fact, denies the rights of millions of inhabitants in its country. It is not disputed territory. It is Israel. Some people would call that apartheid. The hasbara industry rejects that terminology, accusing those who use it of being anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. Yesha is not afraid of that term. If that is what the reality is, so be it. The land belongs to the Jews. Period.
I’ve read some coverage of this, and it seems he has indeed provided the support for Israel required of rabbis who want to keep their jobs. Though maybe he’s changed his mind recently?
Judaism verus Zionism.