#colleyville hostage situation
Text
There's something I've been thinking about, and since this is my personal blog, I figured I'd write it out and maybe share it -- maybe I'll get to the end of this post and close it without saving, maybe I'll tuck it away into my drafts. I don't know yet.
I am ethnically Jewish, but I wasn't raised in the culture. My family situation is complicated, due to divorces, remarriages, and relocations, but I usually just tell people that I'm patrilineal, raised secular, and that I'm reconnecting with the community, with a potential conversion in my near future. After nearly 10 years of independent study and hanging around with other Jewish people both online and offline, and then moving into a city that has a large Jewish community, I decided this year to take a more earnest stride into Jewish communal and religious life.
This started with me signing up for social events around the High Holidays, and that's how I found myself in the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History on the evening of Yom Kippur. I'd been to the museum a few years before for a film festival, so I had seen some of the things they had on display, but I've not yet actually toured the building. This time I was there for an event being held in one of the empty conference rooms, meeting with a friend to have a pre-fast dinner before sundown and then joining in group prayer. It was an emotional evening for me for many reasons, particularly because it was my first time observing the holiday in the ritual sense, and that it seemed like an appropriate time to meditate on the nature of the new life that I'm trying to live. But it was also a memorable evening for me for another reason.
If you ever find yourself in Philadelphia, you can visit this museum yourself. Admission is free. On the ground floor, there is a piece on display across from the elevator, and I noticed it there as I was leaving the event. At first, I thought it was misplaced, because the display is a chair, and a cup of tea.
These items were donated by the Congregation of Beth Israel, a reform synagogue in Colleyville Texas. It was a somber sight for me on that night in September. I had only really heard a vague overview of what had happened there barely two years ago -- if you read the Wikipedia article linked above, you will notice it happened in January of 2022. And I remember that the one thought that crossed my mind as I stood in front of that chair is that when you enter a history museum, you expect to see things that are old, maybe from the 40s or something. And you will. But you'll also see the chair a rabbi threw at a man who was holding his synagogue hostage in 2022. Because this part of our history is still ongoing.
Read this part of the article:
A livestream of the synagogue's services on its Facebook page streamed the ongoing situation, including the forceful taking of hostages. In the livestream, Akram could be heard speaking to authorities, who attempted to negotiate with him. At one point, Akram claimed (apparently falsely) to have a bomb. The livestream also streamed Akram saying that he had flown to the city where Siddiqui was imprisoned with the intent of taking hostages. He also said that he chose to take hostages in a synagogue because the U.S. "only cares about Jewish lives" and because "Jews control the world. Jews control the media. Jews control the banks."
And that has been in the back of my mind constantly since a group of people in this city decided to protest outside of a fucking falafel restaurant chanting "we charge you with genocide." It's this idea that Jews are responsible for the acts of every other Jew, and on top of that, Jews are responsible for everyone else, too, when convenient. Like a sort of universal scapegoat. It makes me furious, of course, but mostly it just makes me sad.
I have zero regrets about throwing my lot in with this side of my family, my heritage, my history... but it is unbelievably heavy at times. Still, I feel like I have to carry it. Stronger people than me have died for it, but I will do what I have to do. I do have hope for the future, and more broadly speaking I have hope for the world, too.
מיר וועלן זיי איבערלעבן. עם ישראל חי
#also i formally joined my local synagogue in sept and it has felt like that gif of troy baker entering that burning room with the pizza#you know the one#honestly glad i did though because i would be having a mental breakdown without their support#jumblr#antisemitism#long post
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
I posted 3,249 times in 2022
That's 1,765 more posts than 2021!
1,308 posts created (40%)
1,941 posts reblogged (60%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@perfectquote
@akindplace
@anxious-and-in-pain
@spooniestrong
@gliklofhameln
I tagged 3,214 of my posts in 2022
Only 1% of my posts had no tags
#jumblr - 599 posts
#inspirational quotes - 391 posts
#life quotes - 343 posts
#periodic reminder - 343 posts
#motivational quotes - 327 posts
#mental health - 308 posts
#mental illness - 272 posts
#chronic illness - 216 posts
#judaism - 212 posts
#chronic condition - 198 posts
Longest Tag: 75 characters
#almost this exact thing happened in a dream i had after my grandmother died
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
In Judaism joy is the supreme religious emotion. Here we are, in a world filled with beauty. Every breath we breathe is the spirit of God within us. Around us is the love that moves the sun and all the stars. We are here because someone wanted us to be. The soul that celebrates, sings.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Studies in Spirituality, p. 258
264 notes - Posted October 13, 2022
#4
No people has believed as lucidly and long as have Jews that life has a purpose; that this world is an arena of justice and human dignity; that we are, each of us, free and responsible, capable of shaping our lives in accordance with our highest ideals. We are here for a reason. We were created in love and forgiveness by the God of love and forgiveness who asks us to love and forgive. However many times we may have failed to live up to our aspirations, God always gives us the chance and the power to begin again. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the holiest days of a holy people, God summons us to greatness.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Ceremony & Celebration, p. 3
264 notes - Posted September 30, 2022
#3
One of Judaism’s most distinctive and challenging ideas is its ethics of responsibility, the idea that God invites us to become, in the rabbinic phrase, his ‘partners in the world of creation’. The God who created the world in love calls on us to create in love. The God who gave us the gift of freedom asks us to use it to honour and enhance the freedom of others.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"tl, To Heal a Fractured World, p.3
328 notes - Posted November 21, 2022
#2
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/texas-synagogue-hostage-situation/index.html
433 notes - Posted January 15, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
What has given Yom Kippur its unique place on the map of the Jewish heart is that it is the most intensely personal of all the festivals. Pesach, Shavuot, and Succot are celebrations of Jewish memory and history. They remind us of what it means to be a member of the Jewish people, sharing its past, its present and its hopes. Rosh Hashanah, the anniversary of creation, is about what it means to be human under the sovereignty of God. But Yom Kippur is about what it means to be me, this unique person that I am. It makes us ask, What have I done with my life? Whom have I hurt or harmed? How have I behaved? What have I done with God’s greatest gift, life itself? What have I lived for and what will I be remembered for?
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, The Koren Sacks Yom Kippur Machzor, p. xx
535 notes - Posted October 3, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
1 note
·
View note
Text
Man Who Sold Gun Used in Synagogue Standoff Gets Nearly 8 Years in Prison - The New York Times
* Man Who Sold Gun Used in Synagogue Standoff Gets Nearly 8 Years in Prison The New York Times
* Man set to be sentenced on gun charge in Colleyville synagogue hostage situation WFAA
* Texas man who sold gun to hostage-taker gets nearly 8 years ABC News
* Man who sold gun used in Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis sentenced to 8 years in prison WFAA.com
* Texas man who sold gun to synagogue hostage-taker gets nearly 8 years NBC News
* View Full Coverage on Google News http://dlvr.it/Sbg58l
0 notes
Text
Hostages in Dallas-Fort Worth area synagogue out safe, hostage taker dead
Hostages in Dallas-Fort Worth area synagogue out safe, hostage taker dead
AUSTIN (KXAN) — After a hostage situation that lasted all day at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue near Dallas-Fort Worth, all of the people being held for nearly 12 hours are out alive and unharmed.
The hostage taker is dead, according the chief of police at Colleyville. Law enforcement would not confirm his identity Saturday night.
One of the hostages, a man, was released shortly after 5…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
It's insane to me that authorities are claiming that the suspect wasn't motivated by antisemitism, despite taking hostages in a synagogue on Shabbat *during services*, but this is hardly the first time I've seen this happen. I don't understand how it's so easy for them to pretend antisemitism doesn't exist.
289 notes
·
View notes
Text
this was very clearly a purposefully antisemitic attack i mean. cmon fbi.
17 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ridiculous that major news sources are trying to say that the hostage-taking in Colleyville wasn't antisemitic in nature.
If the motive wasn't antisemitism, why was the attack specifically on Shabbat?
If the motive wasn't antisemitism, why was the attack specifically during Shabbat morning services?
If the motive wasn't antisemitism, why was the Rabbi specifically among those taken hostage?
If the motive wasn't antisemitism, why was it a synagogue being attacked and not the Church across the street?
To deny the antisemitic nature of the attack is to silence Jews and be complicit with our oppression.
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
Hating beyond description the fact that when I came back online after Shabbat and saw the news that there was an ongoing hostage situation at a synagogue in Texas, my initial reaction was horror, grief, terror, overwhelm, etc... and yet, so much more weariness than shock. This should not be.
The hostages at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville are all now free, safe, and at least physically okay. I cannot express my relief and gratitude. Baruch Hashem.
I’m still sad, and scared, and so very tired.
I know I have a handful of Jewish followers, and I know many of us are feeling very vulnerable and alone right now. Have a virtual hug, if you would like one. Shavua tov, because it is, somehow, still Motza'ei Shabbos. Take care, as best you can. מיר וועלן זיי איבערלעבן...
#jumblr#antisemitism#current events#Colleyville#hostage situation#dandelion says#jewish dandelion#we are not making it up when we say that antisemitism is real#in case anyone was wondering#also if you are not Jewish but have Jewish friends you care about#please consider reaching out to them and checking in#they may or may not want to talk about it#but at least they'll know you care#at a time when it feels like many people don't
102 notes
·
View notes
Text
I wish I would have posted abt this yesterday, but I feel like I can make a better post now. Stomping out antisemitic conspiracy theories whenever possible is one of the most important responses to this situation. It's also important to remember that islamophobia is never acceptable either. Do not perpetuate another groups oppression while fighting against another. Below are resource for education on antisemitism/other helpful resources (I tried not to include pro-Israel sources) and I encourage others to add more helpful sources:
UNESCO - Preventing Antisemitism Through Education
UNESCO - Anti-Semitism: Learning the Lessons of History
Antisemtism.org
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Jewish Voice for Peace: On Antisemitism
Jewish Voice for Peace: Network Against Islamophobia
Antisemitism Carrd
Jewish Solidarity Carrd
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
you know the world has gone topsy turvy when fox news is giving more accurate information about the colleyville texas synagogue/aafia siddiqui-related ongoing hostage situation but cnn is trotting out sensationalist, islamophobic commentators spewing incorrect facts.
may Allah allow a peaceful resolution and the release of all hostages unharmed. ameen.
11 notes
·
View notes
Link
A hostage situation is underway at a synagogue in the Dallas-Fort Worth area Saturday, several sources told ABC News.
An armed suspect claiming to have bombs in unknown locations took a rabbi and three others hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel, a source familiar with the situation told ABC News. It is unclear to what extent the hostage-taker is armed.
A U.S. official briefed on the matter told ABC News the hostage-taker is claiming to be the brother of convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, but authorities have not yet confirmed his identity. The suspect is demanding to have the sister freed, the official said.
Siddiqui is incarcerated at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, according to the source. She had alleged ties to al-Qaida and was convictedof assault and attempted murder of a U.S. soldier in 2010 and sentenced to 86 years in prison.
There is believed to be one suspect at this time, the source said. The FBI has responded to the scene, along with local authorities and hostage negotiators. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is also responding to the situation, according to an agency spokesperson.
A White House official confirmed to ABC News that the White House is "closely monitoring" the hostage situation. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has also been briefed on the situation, according to a DHS spokesperson.
The Colleyville Police Department's SWAT team responded to the area midday Saturday and evacuated residents in the immediate area.
As of 2:20 p.m. local time, the situation "remains ongoing," the department said on social media. "We ask that you continue to avoid the area."
ABC News' Luke Barr contributed to this story.
6 notes
·
View notes
Link
In this Letter to the Editor, faith leaders from throughout the Spokane area express support for the local Jewish community
#letter to the editor#antisemitism#faith leaders and leaders of conscience#colleyville#congregation beth israel#hostage situation
0 notes
Text
About Aafia Siddiqui, the prisoner believed to be the motivating factor of the Colleyville hostage taker
About Aafia Siddiqui, the prisoner believed to be the motivating factor of the Colleyville hostage taker
Two law enforcement officials tell CNN that investigators believe the hostage taker at a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue may have been motivated by a desire to free Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year sentence at a federal prison in Texas after being convicted of trying to kill Americans overseas.
The sources tell CNN that assessment is based on both discussions with the suspect and audio…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/texas-synagogue-hostage-situation/index.html
#jews#texas#antisemitism#anti semitism#hate crime#breaking news#jumblr#domestic terrorism#hostage situation
431 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
magicf1
Magic.
alliecatt20
I post what I want
ronzaferite-blog
Untitled
reinaisabelserrano
Dulzuras para la vista
bloob-art
Art blog!