Shane Woodward said he had doubts about going to service at his Colleyville synagogue on Jan. 15, 2022.
The Keller resident was running late to worship at Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform Jewish synagogue he’s attended since 2018. Woodward didn’t grow up Jewish, but at the time he was in the process of converting to the faith.
Despite running late, he still decided to show.
What started as a typical service turned into Woodward and three other congregants being held hostage in the synagogue by Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old Englishman. The 11-hour standoff ended with all the hostages managing to escape. Law enforcemententered the building and killed Akram inside.
“I started having a panic attack because I’m like, I can’t move — because if I did and (Akram) sets a bomb off, then we’re all going to die, right?’” Woodward said.
Since then, Woodward and the other hostages gather together around the anniversary date in remembrance of how the day ended: with everyone making it out alive. He and another hostage, Jeffrey Cohen, and both of their wives looked back at how the event changed their lives and weighed in on addressing the rise in antisemitism worldwide.
“The big thing about anniversaries is that we need to remember them,” Cohen, president of the board of trustees for the synagogue, said. “We need to remember them because of what happened so that we can try to avoid it happening again.”
Colleyville documentary to come to the screens
The second anniversary comes at a time when Cohen is thinking about hostages from the Israel-Hamas war. He’s also thinking about the rise in antisemitism around the world, he said.
There were 2,042 religious-biased crimes reported to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2022, more than half of these were driven by anti-Jewish bias, according to FBI hate crime statistics.
Cohen wants to continue telling people his story and what happened at Congregation Beth Israel on that day. Hey Jude Productions, a Los Angeles-based film production company, will share stories from those who were held hostage, along with law enforcement, in its upcoming documentary called “Colleyville.” Hey Jude Productions was created by Israeli Academy Award winner, writer and director Dani Menkin.
“Our story (and) what happened to us isn’t important. What is important is the danger that racism and antisemitism possess,” Cohen said. “I want to make sure this gets seen and heard.”
Two years later: ‘It has fundamentally changed us’
Karen Jewell said she had trouble sleeping in the days leading up to the anniversary when her husband, Jeffrey Cohen, was held hostage at the synagogue for hours.
While he was there, Jewell and other family members of the hostages were at Good Shepherd Catholic Community, the church across the street.
“It has fundamentally changed us,” Jewell said. “We’re certainly different people than we were before it happened.”
Last year, Cohen, Woodward, along with other hostages and their families, had dinner together as a way to gather and remember that they made it out alive but also reflect on how their lives have changed since then.
Woodward is now more vigilant about noting where his exits are in any given room and makes a plan if something were to happen to him again, he said. He also has a concealed carry license.
“On that day, I wasn’t carrying. I didn’t feel like I needed to, but now, absolutely. I carry now because who wants to go through another situation like that?”
Woodward’s wife, Jennifer, tries to see the dinners as a way to remind herself of how that day ended: with her husband and the others making it out alive.
“It’s more of a celebration of life and survival because the outcome could have been completely different,” Jennifer said.
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org or @marissaygreene. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.