COMMUNITY

Daniel Septimus

Rabbi

"My heart was just really, really just struggling to watch this situation unfold: Another Jewish institution and specifically a synagogue that's being attacked," said Rabbi Daniel Septimus, the CEO of Shalom Austin, after an Islamist assailant took a rabbi and three worshipers hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas on January 15, 2022. Police killed the armed hostage-taker at the scene with no other casualties, but the incident left a traumatic legacy for the community. "It just resurfaces that antisemitism is only on the rise in the United States and around the globe," Septimus told NBC. "I think for us, it's how we constantly respond to it proactively and reactively and how we as a community come together with other communities outside the Jewish community to stand in solidarity, to fight against it." (Photo: Shalom Austin)