Rabbi at center of Texas hostage standoff resigned in fall after board voted not to renew contract

The Texas rabbi celebrated around the world as a hero for freeing himself and several congregants from a gunman in an 11-hour synagogue siege had resigned this fall after the congregation’s board voted not to renew his contract, the Forward has learned. The board decision came despite what many described as overwhelming support for Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker by the membership of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville. “I can assure you he would have been unanimously voted to stay,” Anna Eisen, a co-founder of the synagogue, said in an interview. “As a congregation we have been very heartbroken and distraught,” she added. “I myself have begged him to stay but I also realize that he has given us 16 years of his life.”

In an email to a former congregant sent Nov. 1, Congregation Beth Israel’s treasurer, Cindy Whitton, said the board of directors had planned to recommend against renewal ahead of a congregational meeting required by the its bylaws, but that the rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, “decided that he did not want to go to the membership for a vote,” instead choosing to leave when his contract expires in June. “The board believes that the synagogue needs a new spark after 15 years,” Whitton wrote to the former congregant, Neal Gray, citing declining membership and religious school enrollment. Gray had written to the synagogue’s president, Michael Fifner, after an Oct. 28 email from Fifner and Cytron-Walker announcing the resignation. That announcement, said another congregant, Stephen Yarus, caused “enormous outcry.” In it, Fifner wrote that “this was not an easy decision for any of us,” and Cytron-Walker said: “This is a very difficult moment.”