On Sunday, March 6, Fort Worth city leaders met with Jewish community leaders to discuss rising antisemitism in Texas and the nation.
The meeting took place at the Beth-El Congregation in Fort Worth. U.S. Representative Kay Granger (R-12th District) was joined by fellow U.S. Representative Marc Veasey (D-33rd District) and Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker.
Granger and Veasey are both members of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism.
“I want us to think really carefully about what we do in Fort Worth to assist Congressman Veasey and Congresswoman Granger in their efforts nationally,” Parker said.
The most recent Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in the U.S. conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 2,100 acts of vandalism, harassment, and assault. This figure constituted a 12% increase from the previous year and the highest total since the ADL began tracking such incidents in 1979.
“It’s disheartening to see that antisemitism is on the rise in America,” Veasey said. “I think it’s important to have that conversation about what happened in Colleyville.”
In January, a man from the UK was welcomed into the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, where he proceeded to hold the rabbi and three others hostage for hours.
Malik Faisal Akram, 44, was the perpetrator. Armed with a gun, he demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, the first female terrorism defendant arrested after September 11, 2001. Siddiqui is being held at Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth.
The ordeal ended when an FBI special agent fatally shot Akram. All the hostages were unharmed, but the FBI said antisemitic beliefs fueled the violent act.
In February, the city of Colleyville was among other North Texas communities targeted by widespread antisemitic flyers.
Amy Berger, the assistant director of the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) Dallas office, spoke at the meeting Sunday and explained how the hostage-taker’s thinking was an example of antisemitism.
“I think that’s what we saw in Colleyville when the gunman came to the synagogue thinking that he could use the Jews to somehow get a prisoner out of jail,” Berger said.
She explained that believing Jews had the power to grant his demands was an example of subtle antisemitism, less obvious than chants or painted swastikas.
Joel Schwitzer, the AJC regional director for Dallas, also spoke. He discussed the October 2021 findings of AJC’s State of Antisemitism in America survey, conducted before the Colleyville hostage situation.
The survey found that 90% of American Jews surveyed believe antisemitism is a problem, compared to 60% of the general population. Additionally, 82% of Jews said they think antisemitism has increased in the last five years, compared to 44% of the general population.
Less than half (48%) of the general population said they had heard “a lot” or “some” about Jews being attacked.
“It would be interesting to see if that 48% perhaps will rise a little bit after recent events. I’m sure at least in our North Texas community it certainly would,” said Schwitzer.
Nearly four-in-ten (39%) Jews surveyed said they had changed their behavior out of fear of antisemitism, 25% said they avoided posting content online that might reveal their Jewish identity, 22% said they avoided wearing things that would identify them as Jewish, and 17% said they avoided certain places or events due to concerns about their safety as Jews.
Schwitzer said meetings with city leaders like the one that took place Sunday in Fort Worth were part of the assistance lawmakers could provide.
“It makes it real in a way that it hadn’t been previously for a lot of people,” Schwitzer said.
The city leaders in attendance agreed that a return to prioritizing the principle of getting to know your neighbors was one of the best ways to combat antisemitism.
