State and local Jewish elected officials on Monday, March 16 called on Michigan residents and lawmakers to support anti-terrorism measures and to speak out against what they said is a rising tide of antisemitism.
“What happened last week at Temple Israel was not random,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said during a news conference in downtown Detroit, where she and four other Jewish lawmakers warned that a March 12 attack on the West Bloomfield synagogue was a clear sign that hate is on the rise.
“More can and must be done to prevent these horrific acts from occurring again,” said Oakland County Treasurer Robert Wittenberg, who called Oakland County “truly the center of the Jewish community in Michigan.”
FBI officials said last week they are investigating the attack on the synagogue as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.” More than a hundred children were in school at Temple Israel when Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a 41-year-old immigrant from Lebanon who is a U.S. citizen, drove a vehicle into the synagogue. Ghazali was killed in the attack, a security guard was injured and the temple was partially burned in a fire.
State Sen. Jeremy Moss, a Bloomfield Township Democrat, along with state representatives Noah Arbit, a West Bloomfield Democrat, and Samantha Steckloff, a Farmington Hills Democrat, praised Temple Israel’s security team for preventing a potential massacre. They also decried the need for security at places where Jews gather and worship.
“Jews pray and go to schools in fortresses, like no other group must experience,” Moss said. “We can’t fully appreciate our First Amendment rights in our country when we sacrifice our freedom for security.”
The lawmakers said people who hate Jews are using Israel’s role in the war on Iran as an excuse to spread hate and as motivation to increase antisemitic activity.
“This attack was an anti-Israel-driven form of antisemitism, which is a very specific crisis we’re going through in this moment,” Moss said, adding that while he has heard people said “American Jews shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of the Israel government … we’re also watching Jews be targeted for expressing any sort of relationship with Israel.”
Arbit said Jews are being singled out, adding that while Russia has been criticized for invading Ukraine, Russian churches and businesses are not attacked.
Moss added: “The Jewish community is small, but has a disproportionate target on its back.”
He called on everyone to speak out against antisemitism and to report suspicious activity.
“It really requires the good will of people to step up in this moment,” Moss said.
M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter, director of student investigative reporting program Eye On Michigan, and host of the ML’s Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him at mlelrick@freepress.com or follow him on X at @elrick, Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan elected officials say Jews are targets as antisemitism soars
Reporting by M.L. Elrick, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
