Charlie Cytron-Walker

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Charlie Cytron-Walker is an American rabbi who serves at Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was born in Lansing, Michigan, and earned a B.A. in social sciences from the University of Michigan in 1998 and an M.A. in Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 2005. He was ordained in 2006 and follows Reform Judaism. His first full-time rabbinic job was at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, starting in 2006. He has worked on interfaith dialogue and taught at the congregation’s religious school, and earlier in his career he worked with Focus: HOPE in Detroit and at the Amherst Survival Center.

On January 15, 2022, he and three others were taken hostage during the Colleyville synagogue crisis. After about eleven hours, the hostages escaped unharmed. Cytron-Walker credited security training from the FBI, the Anti-Defamation League, the Colleyville Police Department, and the Secure Community Network with saving lives. The congregation did not renew his contract and he resigned in 2021.

In February 2022, he became the rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem. He is married to Adena Cytron, a diversity professional, and they have two daughters. They use the hyphenated surname Cytron-Walker.