From Masada to Texas: Healing Words Help Former Hostage Find Purpose
Anna Salton Eisen shares her feelings when she witnessed her friends and fellow congregants at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas were taken hostage by a crazed gunman last year.
As a therapist and an author, Anna Salton Eisen knows firsthand that words have the power to heal. Yet, on January 15, 2022, when she watched i she didn’t know what to say. “My mother, who was 99 and a Holocaust survivor had come to live with me, it was horrible to have to tell her that this was happening in our town. That this kind of antisemitism was still happening.”
As a founder of the synagogue, Eisen was devastated by the destruction she witnessed when she finally was able to return to the building the weekend after the attack. Windows had shattered, the flooring was full of bullet holes, but most disturbing was the pain and trauma she saw in her dear friend Jeff Cohen’s eyes, one of the hostages who had experienced the ordeal firsthand and who had faced down the barrel of the gunman, saved only by the miraculous fact that the trigger jammed.
“I didn’t know if I could go back,” said Cohen, but it was the surprise gift that Eisen presented him with the following week that gave him the strength to return as a leader and an outspoken advocate against antisemitism.
Life has never been the same for the people of Congregation Beth Israel. They regularly receive threats of violence and “revenge” and have had to adjust to a constant security presence. More than that, they have had to contend with the knowledge that a man boarded a plane and flew thousands of miles to harm them just for being Jews, driven by hatred and conspiracy theories that are rapidly taking further root before their eyes. Eisen described the ongoing experience for her community as only a therapist can, “To be the target of hatred… it has changed things for us. We can’t fully recover because trauma recovery requires safety, processing, and autonomy, and we do not have safety.” Though they still face dangers externally, she explained, “I wanted Jeff to be reminded that he was not forsaken, that he should feel safe and protected.” That theme of searching for safety drives her work, telling her parents’ story of Holocaust survival, and drives her community to continue to do outreach and share their story for the good and safety of Jews everywhere.