Temple Israel update

28 May 2026

This is a followup of the March 12, 2026 terrorist attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

I have a deep connection to Temple Israel. My grandparents were founding members. Before the first building was constructed on Manderson Road in Detroit, my father, of blessed memory, had his bar mitzvah at the Detroit Institute of Arts, which was used temporarily for services.

I attended Temple Israel’s Hebrew School (grades 4-12) and Sunday school (K-12) in Detroit. The above photo is from my confirmation class graduation (9th grade - I am in the back row, 7th on the right from center, directly behind the boy with glasses). The synagogue moved to its current West Bloomfield building was finished in 1980. I was married there in 1990.

I am a frequent visitor to their services, which are now held at various local Jewish institutions due to the renovation. The site of the services is communicated privately for security purposes. There has been a heavy police presence at all services I have attended.

Danny Phillips, the security guard and former police officer who was injured while protecting the lives of 140 toddlers and staff, is apparently doing OK, although I do not have details.

The terrorist’s truck was filled with 35 gallons of gasoline, 300 rounds of ammunition and commercial grade fireworks. The terrorist had an AK-47 meant to, as he wrote in a text to his sister, “kill as many of them as I possibly can.” The terrorist drove into the nursery school entrance, where the children were in class, but his vehicle got stuck in the narrow hallway. His engine compartment caught fire, creating a tremendous amount of smoke and heat that the ventilation system circulated throughout the building, setting off the sprinkler system.

According to Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press:

But this was not a national disaster. This was a national tragedy, another horror notch on the antisemitic belt, made worse in the weeks that followed by the frequent indifference and occasional glee from those opposed to Israeli military action in the Middle East.

“The most traumatizing thing for me has been the comments and the vitriol from some of our neighbors,” [Rabbi] Lader admits. “[People who] live in this community, who are bemoaning the fact that nobody was killed, and celebrating the fact that we somehow ‘got what was coming to us.’

“This conflation between little Jewish kids in a preschool and a war that’s happening in a country across the ocean has been shocking. And terrifying.”

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