The text from my mother came as I was leaving a lunch meeting: “Temple Israel is under attack. Active shooter. Everyone is frantic.”
Reading these words, I could hardly breathe. Temple Israel has been part of every major event in my life and my family’s life — from my dad’s bar mitzvah more than 60 years ago to my own bat mitzvah, wedding and my son’s baby naming. Even though I have lived away from Detroit since college graduation, Temple Israel will always be home.
Of course, there are many wonderful synagogues and Jewish institutions in New York, my adoptive city, yet none of them will ever be Temple Israel. It’s one of the largest Reform congregations in North America, but the vibe is intimate, giving all who enter the sense of being known, welcomed and loved.
That’s why I fly home as often as I can for Jewish holidays — or, if I can’t make it in person, I tune in to the temple’s livestream. It’s the reason I insisted there was no one else who could officiate our wedding besides my Temple Israel clergy. The reason I was devastated when COVID prevented us from having my baby blessed in the chapel that bears my grandparents’ names.
More texts from my mother only increased my horror: Someone with a truck full of explosives had rammed through the doors and started shooting. “The attacker is dead, but they don’t know if there’s another one, and the building is on fire,” she wrote. “I’m shaking.”
Our dear family friend, the former head of Temple’s Early Childhood Center, was on lockdown. I thought of another family friend’s daughter, Director of Education Rabbi Arianna Gordon, and everyone we knew whose children and grandchildren were there. That’s the thing about the Detroit Jewish community, which numbers about 70,000: We’re all connected — or one or two degrees removed. That afternoon, we all felt the terror in our bones.
As I anxiously refreshed my browser for updates, images began to emerge of what appeared to be hundreds of police cars, firetrucks and SWAT vehicles lining Walnut Lake Road, the main thoroughfare leading to Temple. And then the children. Some held by police, some holding teachers’ hands, some cradled by clearly emotional parents weaving around the chaos lining the road. One boy, who looked no older than 2, was still in his sleep sack.
Finally, we got word: All 104 kids were safe. So were our staff, teachers and clergy. Although the heroic Director of Security Danny Phillips was injured, and some 30 first responders hospitalized for smoke inhalation, they were expected to recover.
Once we all breathed a collective sigh of relief, we realized how narrowly we had avoided catastrophe. We were on the brink of another Tree of Life. Another Sandy Hook — or worse. For fellow Jewish parents — in Michigan and around the country — the feeling was, “This could’ve been me. This could’ve been my kid.”
Every weekday morning, my first grader walks past security guards and police officers as he climbs the steps of the brownstone that houses his Jewish day school. I watch his little backpack with its planets and spaceships fade from view as he heads through the metal detectors and downstairs to the gym. These protections, and many others, have become such normal parts of our routine that I no longer notice them. As antisemitic violence and threats have accelerated, Jewish Federations of North America estimate the Jewish community across the United States spends about $765 million per year on security measures.
That night, I thought of the lives that had been saved because of that unfortunate but necessary investment. As Rabbi Josh Bennett told CNN, “All of our staff members, all of our teachers have been trained over the years because we expect these things to happen. We just never want them to be real.”
The next morning, two security guards at my son’s school in New York were standing at the bottom of the steps; parents had received an email that the team was on heightened alert. Ordinarily, I rush to the subway after drop-off to begin my workday. But this time, I paused and thanked the officers for everything they do to keep my child and his classmates safe.
As Shabbat approached, I wondered how Temple Israel would welcome the Sabbath, given the state of the building. But in true Temple fashion, my family and fellow congregants received word Friday afternoon that a service would indeed be held “in solidarity and frankly, in defiance, of those who would deprive us of our religious freedoms.”
The location would be Shenandoah, the country club across the street that serves the Chaldean community — Iraqi Christians who fled persecution and made a home in Metro Detroit. As the attack unfolded, we came to learn, Shenandoah had immediately opened its doors, serving as a shelter for Temple’s clergy and staff, for teachers and children evacuating the building, for frightened parents waiting to be reunited with their babies. After a decades-long friendship, the Shenandoah community fed and consoled our Temple family, demonstrating the true meaning of “love thy neighbor.”
That Friday evening, all I wanted to do was hop on a plane and join my parents, cousins and friends, but YouTube would have to do. From my computer screen in Manhattan, I watched hundreds of people fill the hall at Shenandoah. Addressing the crowd, our rabbis and cantor — who have devoted their careers to comforting others — appeared in need of comforting themselves. And yet, they showed remarkable grace, strength and resolve as they shared their harrowing experiences from the previous day.
After first responders led staff out of the building, Rabbi Gordon recalled sheltering at a neighbor’s with multiple toddlers in her lap — while her own son was still inside. Rabbi Jen Lader praised the teachers who had bravely protected those 104 babes. Sometimes, she said, “love is an action.” At one point, when only four classrooms had safely evacuated to Shenandoah, Rabbi Paul Yedwab said he began to fear how many little funerals they would have to perform. The greatest miracle was that this unthinkable possibility did not come to pass.
And another miracle: While the sanctuary was badly damaged — and the prayerbooks destroyed — the Torahs were somehow unharmed. Rabbi Jen Kaluzny held one in her arms, creating a human ark. The real ark is a huge, gilded tabernacle that my grandfather, a two-time Temple president, helped transport from Detroit to West Bloomfield when the congregation relocated in the 1970s. On Sunday, we learned this piece of Temple history had also survived.
Still, I realized it would be a long time before the sacred space I’ve known is fully restored. And yet, Temple Israel was never just a building.
It was standing beside our entire clergy on the bimah at my bat mitzvah. It was Rabbi Yedwab teaching me, a nerdy kid who loved philosophy, about Martin Buber’s “I and Thou.” It was singing in Temple’s outdoor concert with a gospel choir from Detroit on a breezy summer evening. It was my mom and her best friend Marc leading the Synagogue 2000 (S2K) initiative with Rabbi Marla Hornsten, Temple’s first female rabbi. It was telling Rabbi Loss how nervous my Israeli in-laws were about coming to Detroit for our wedding — and then watching him set them at ease less than five minutes into the ceremony. It was chatting with Cantor Neil Michaels in my grandmother’s living room during shiva, recalling their shared passion for music. It was sitting with my 6-year-old in the beautiful pavilion on Erev Rosh Hashanah this past September, watching him fall in love with Temple, too.
Near the end of that moving, healing Shabbat service, Rabbi Yedwab remarked, “Our mishkan (sanctuary) is not made of wood and bricks. It’s you.”
I will hold onto these words — along with my fervent, defiant belief that our Temple family will emerge stronger. In two weeks, my husband, son and I will head to Detroit for Passover. I may not be able to enter Temple’s doors, but I will wrap my arms around my community — and I will know that I am home.
The author’s bat mitzvah at Temple Israel, right. The author’s father’s bar mitzvah, also at Temple Israel, left.
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