By Steven Ingber, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Detroit
This story ran in the Detroit Free Press, March 22, 2026
March 12, 2026, is a day our community will always remember.
At Michigan’s largest Jewish congregation, a vehicle rammed into the building while dozens of staff members and clergy were at work and 140 children were in preschool. Fire and smoke followed, and gunfire erupted as security moved to stop the threat. A member of the security team was injured; more than one hundred first responders were treated for smoke inhalation; and — by grace, training and courage — none of the children, teachers or clergy were physically harmed.
This quickly became a worldwide headline. But it was far more than that for me. This was my temple — the place where my family prays, where we celebrate milestones and where our children are learning what it means to be good people in the world today.
In my work as CEO of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, I also see the broader picture—how incidents like this ripple across every synagogue, school, agency and campus. Federation is the cornerstone of our community’s communal efforts, and we spend our days helping Jewish Detroit stay safe and supported.
The night before the attack, I heard from members of our community who had just been at Temple Israel for a Jewish Federation Women’s Philanthropy event — more than seven hundred women connecting, celebrating and strengthening the future together. Earlier that day, I had been in meetings with FBI personnel in Washington DC to discuss the need for Jewish security measures in our community — work that has become a painful routine for Jewish communal leaders across America.
For that is our reality: Jewish life today is lived with two truths at once. One is the joy and pride of building community — raising children, caring for neighbors, creating meaning through tradition, philanthropy, learning and prayer. The other is the terrible burden of knowing that at any moment, simply gathering as Jews can make us targets.
When the assault came the next day, it was shocking and horrifying — but it was not surprising. Jewish communities across North America have learned a sobering lesson: antisemitism does not announce itself politely. It shows up in familiar tropes and slander, in toxic chatter online, in graffiti and vandalism, in threats that force synagogues to think like fortresses. And far too often, it shows up the way it did at Temple Israel — violent, brazen and designed to terrorize.
But if this attack revealed the worst of what hate can do, what followed revealed something very different.
It began with the brave Temple Israel security team, whose preparedness and decisive action prevented what might have been an immense tragedy. It continued with a strong, coordinated law enforcement response — multiple agencies moving with urgency and professionalism. It continued with teachers and clergy who shepherded children through smoke and fear with steadiness and poise, engaging them with songs as they hurried away from danger.
And when the preschoolers and staff needed immediate refuge, they found it across the street at Shenandoah Country Club, a local hub for our friends in the Chaldean community. There they were met with warmth — food, comfort and a safe place to breathe — while families raced to reunite.
Soon after, our partner agency Jewish Family Service sprang into action to offer care and support, as did The J-Detroit, which become an important staging ground for first responders. And thousands of people — friends, partners, clergy, civic leaders and neighbors of every background — reached out in one way or another to say: You are not alone.
This was an event that knocked us down. But it did not knock us out.
On Friday evening, just one day after the attack, I joined hundreds of my fellow Jewish Detroiters in a Shenandoah Club ballroom to welcome Shabbat in a service that was at once joyful and deeply moving. We sang. We cried. We hugged. We steadied one another. And we declared, simply by showing up: Jewish life will continue.
On Saturday night, I attended the bar mitzvah of one of our Temple Israel rabbis’ grandchildren. It had been moved from the damaged building to a new location, where it became a celebration filled with “ruach” — our enduring Jewish spirit, and a force that hate can never extinguish.
And then on Sunday, I was honored to speak at the University of Michigan Hillel Centennial Celebration — a powerful reminder that Jewish community is built one generation at a time. Students stood alongside alumni from decades past to celebrate 100 years of Hillel as a home away from home and a place of belonging, friendship and Jewish pride.
That is the paradox of our Jewish history compressed into a single weekend: a near-tragedy and a celebration; grief and gratitude woven together into a sacred commitment to keep standing up for one another — and for our Jewish heritage.
And yet resilience is not the same as acceptance.
Let me be clear: We do not accept the hatred directed at Jews. We do not accept the slights and slander, the recycled lies in new packaging, the harassment that proliferates online, or the graffiti and property damage meant to mark us as outsiders. And we do not accept the heinous evil that assaulted Temple Israel.
Nor do we accept what happened in Toronto this month, where multiple synagogues have been struck by gunfire. Or the attacks on a synagogue in Liège, Belgium; at a Chanukah gathering at Bondi Beach in Australia; at a peaceful march in Boulder, Colorado; or at the Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. These incidents are connected by a single, poisonous idea: that Jews can be threatened into silence, invisibility or fear.
They cannot.
In fact, our pride and commitment only grow stronger in the face of these attacks. We respond to antisemitism not by shrinking, but by strengthening Jewish life: by opening our doors again, by teaching our children, by caring for one another and by insisting that a synagogue is a sanctuary —not a target.
At the Jewish Federation of Detroit, we will continue to invest in robust protection and preparedness — training, coordination and partnerships that help keep Jewish Detroit safe. But I am not willing to accept a future where Jewish parents have to calculate risk before they send their children to preschool, or before they walk into prayer. Our leaders must condemn antisemitism — and match those words with action — so that Jews, like all Americans, can gather and worship in safety.
That is the antidote to antisemitism: not only thoughts and prayers, not only condemnation — but the determined civic act of a society that chooses decency over hate.
Antisemitism is not invincible. It can be confronted and defeated. We have seen what happens when moral courage rises to meet it.
That is our charge now: to act with confidence, to stand with purpose and to prove—once again—that hate does not get the final word.
