WEST BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Temple Israel, the nation's largest reform synagogue, rallied together on Friday after a gunman rammed his truck into the temple's building, with some saying they refuse to live in fear or let what happened derail them.

About 103 kids were attending classes at Temple Israel, along with 40 to 50 staff members, according to one of the synagogue's rabbis, when the attack happened after 12 p.m. on Thursday on the temple's campus on Walnut Lake Road in West Bloomfield Township. About 3,100 families attend services at Temple Israel.

But no one was injured in Thursday's attack, other than the gunman, who was killed, and a security guard, who was hit by the gunman's truck but is recovering.

The campus remained closed on Friday with yellow police tape draped around the property's perimeter west of Farmington Road and its two entrances blocked off with a row of large metallic carts. Two Oakland County Sheriff's Office SUVs were parked in the entrances.

Even as many grapple with a mix of emotions, Jason Plotkin, Temple Israel's executive director, said the congregation is “really rallying” as a community.

“People are reaching out, wanting to help, willing to volunteer, figure out what they can do and just be together as one. … The outreach, not only from our Jewish community, but from Jewish communities across the country, has been very powerful, as people just want to help and do what they can for our people here in West Bloomfield,” he said.

Rabbi Josh Bennett, one of several rabbis at Temple Israel, said the congregation is “moving forward."

"The Jewish community here in Detroit and around the world is very strong," he said. "We are not going to allow something like this to derail us from our mission to be strong and vibrant as a religious community."

Staff treated attack as a fire drill

Parent Taylor Weintraub of Bloomfield Hills said her 5-year-old son was in a pre-K classroom at the time of Thursday's attack and staff treated it like a fire drill.

“He thankfully is blissfully unaware,” Weintraub said. “His teachers made it as calm as much as they could for them. Told them it was a fire drill and kept them on course and on track and got them out safely. That is something we will forever be grateful for.”

When she found out about the attack, she said she was shocked and in disbelief.

“I have always said we’re at Temple Israel, nothing is ever going to happen at Temple Israel," Weintraub said. "And obviously we were proven wrong, but also proven that nobody is going to get by us.”

Security measures at Temple Israel

Rabbi Josh Bennett said Temple Israel, which dates back to the early 1940s and opened its current location in 1980, has been talking about security as long as he can remember. He has been a rabbi for more than 30 years.

“This has always been top of mind for us,” Bennett said. “In recent years, following Oct. 7, obviously, we ramped up our security.”

The rabbi was referring to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 more hostage. The attack prompted Israel to launch a war against Hamas in Gaza, resulting in tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths. Israel and Hamas brokered an uneasy ceasefire that resulted in the return of all hostages, dead and alive.

Bennett said there are multiple security members on site at all times, but declined to go into specifics. He said everyone acted "according to plans" during Thursday's attack based on previous active shooter trainings.

“Our security team did exactly what we asked them to do," he said.

Bennett said the security officer who was injured in the attack is in good shape. Bennett doesn’t know if he was released from the hospital, but he had minor injuries from being hit by the car.

Still, Temple Israel will continue to examine its security protocols.

“We have a full-time security team, and we are always looking at our building," Bennett said. "We're always looking at our processes and making sure that we continue to keep people safe.”

One of largest Jewish houses of worship

Plotkin said Temple Israel has 3,100 households, making it one of the largest Jewish houses of worship in the world. It is a Reform congregation, and it has been around since 1941.

“What's incredible about our congregation is just its commitment to bettering the world, to educating the community and really being a beacon for what exists here in the Metro Detroit area,” he said.

Temple Israel has a preschool and a religious school, which provides children who attend secular school with Jewish education.

Congregant Elyssa Schmier, who is also the Anti-Defamation League Michigan regional director, said Temple Israel is “pretty massive,” but it’s “incredibly warm, inviting.”

“And it feels like a very small community,” she said. “And you kind of seem to know everyone there.”

She said Temple Israel has a high school youth group, Torah study, and “older ladies playing Mahjong.”

“There's a lot of activity always in the building,” she said. “It's a very large and vibrant clergy.”

Schmier said she is “absolutely heartbroken” over what occurred at the synagogue on Thursday, but she is grateful for the quick action of the security guards and law enforcement.

“Every single child, because there's a preschool that's part of the synagogue, was able to make it home to their family,” she said, “and I think that that is both a mix of the training that our amazing security team has gone through and also just a miracle.”

The ADL said that in 2024, it tabulated 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the U.S. Schmier said several hundred of those were in Michigan. She said in the last week, there have been four shootings at synagogues in North America.

“Antisemitism is becoming more tolerated and normalized in our society,” she said, “and that means that we're seeing more violence towards the Jewish community.”

Congregants stand in solidarity

Congregant Adrienne Lenhoff of West Bloomfield, who lives next door to Temple Israel, said she got married to her husband at the temple two weeks ago. They inadvertently left some items at the synagogue, which she planned to pick up on Thursday after doing errands.

On her way home, she changed her mind and decided at the last minute to go home instead to let her dogs out. She planned to go to the synagogue afterwards.

“As I was bringing them (the dogs) back in the house, I started hearing … the first sirens,” she said. “From that standpoint, it was … pretty overwhelmingly.”

She said she could see the fire trucks and first responders from her house.Lenhoff said she hasn’t attended services at Temple Israel since before the COVID-19 pandemic, except for bar and bat mitzvahs and funerals, because she is concerned about her own safety.

She said the synagogue has outdoor services during warm weather, and she sometimes listens to them from her property.

“And I always think, 'Okay, I'm going to go over, I'm going to go to services,’ and I've always hesitated because I've been concerned about something like yesterday happening,” she said.

But Friday evening, but she planned to go to Shabbat services, which were to be held across the street from the synagogue at Shenandoah Country Club.

“I think that it's important that we show solidarity,” she said. “I think that it's important for us to send a message that history's repeating itself, but you've got thousands of years here of us being able to stand up and survive.”

Weintraub said as someone who is Jewish, "your head is always on a swivel." And having her children attend a Jewish school, parents are extra aware of the hate and what could go wrong and potentially happen.

"Now that it’s happened in our home ... it’s something we’ll obviously never be able to forget," she said.

Still, she plans to keep her son enrolled in school at Temple Israel, where he will start kindergarten in the fall. Her second child will also start there in the fall.

“I still believe Temple Israel is the safest place on Earth,” she said.

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