Michigan synagogue attack highlights rise in antisemitic violence

0:00Law enforcement authorities in suburban Detroit say they're still searching for a motive behind yesterday's attack on a synagogue in school. FBI officials said tonight the suspect had large quantities of commercial-grade fireworks and several jugs of flammable liquid believed to be gasoline in the truck he drove into the building. They also said he had no prior criminal history and that he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The FBI called it, quote, a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community. And it's touched off a wider conversation around anti-Semitism in the U.S. A day after a man rammed his vehicle into a Michigan synagogue, the state's governor was clear. Yesterday's attack was anti-Semitism, it was hate, plain and simple. Governor Gretchen Whitmer with a message of support to the Jewish community in her state and nationwide. We must lower the rhetoric in this state and in this country, especially at this moment

1:01where we have seen such a rise in anti-Semitism and more attacks on the Jewish community. Officials have not yet identified a motive, but new details have emerged about the attacker. Forty-one-year-old Aiman Muhammad Khazali was born in Lebanon. He came to the U.S. in 2011 on an immediate relative visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen. He became a U.S. citizen himself in 2016. The Associated Press reports that an Israeli air strike in eastern Lebanon last week killed his two brothers, his niece and his nephew. Yesterday, armed with a rifle and explosives in the trunk, he drove his truck into the temple Israel Synagogue and preschool. None of the staff, teachers, or over a hundred children inside were injured. One security officer was knocked unconscious by the car. As more were treated for smoke inhalation, Alison Jacobs sends her 18-month-old daughter to the temple's daycare. There are no words. I was in complete another shock.

2:01Cassie Cohen was inside during the attack. I heard a loud crash and I saw some debris from the car and knew that something was very wrong. I heard a bang, which was a shot, hit under my desk and stayed there until we got the all clear from the site too. This comes amid a rise in anti-semitism worldwide and a recent string of related attacks. Three synagogues in Canada were sprayed with gunfire in recent weeks. In January, a man set fire to a synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi. And in December, a gunman targeting Jews killed 15 people in Bondi Beach, Australia. Since the 2018 attack on Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue, more Jewish communities have been stepping up security. Temple Israel had just held an active shooter prevention training in January, an official said it was Temple Security Officers who engaged the attacker. We are just absolutely amazed at the heroism of our security team.

3:04We expect these things to happen. We just never want them to be real. Today, the investigation continues. Tonight, congregants attending Shabbat services will file by a failings of officers standing century outside their temple for some further perspective. Now we turn to Rabbi Stephen Abraham who leads Bethel synagogue that's a congregation in Omaha in Nebraska. Rabbi, welcome to the news hour. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Just give us a sense of what you've been hearing from people in your community, your congregants in these last 48 hours about what they're feeling, what they're worrying about right now. I think at the moment, you know, really, there's a, it's both a mixed sense of relief and gratitude. The fact that, you know, there was, you know, of course, the security guard in Michigan who was injured, but that everybody in the synagogue and the school was safe and that was kind of where things ended. But clearly, there is a heightened sense of a fear and being scared of what is going

4:08on in our country, you know, both abroad and locally here at home. And so, you know, you have to think twice about certain actions you take and being your house of worship is a place that you're supposed to be able to be welcome and not have fears of what took place yesterday afternoon. I mean, tell us about that difficult balance because I should quote you recently, you said talking about this, there's a level of PTSD with the heightened awareness. We are synagogues, we're houses of worship, we are not fort knocks. So how do you keep that sense that your congregation is safe? You know, they can come and pray safely, but not lose the sense it's an open house of worship. Yeah. It's a great question. I think that the truth of matter becomes is it synagogues like churches and knocks are they are houses of worship, right? They're supposed to be places of welcoming, right? That is what we, that's who we are, that's what we stand for. And that is us acting at our very best. So the idea of being able to have, you know, security guards, to metal detectors, to security

5:14ballers, outside to all of these extra precautions, which of course are so necessary in the world that we live in, unfortunately, kind of go against the idea of being so welcoming. And so whether it is to your opening of talking about Australia, to the tree of life synagogue, to pow it, to Kohliville, to what happened yesterday, you know, in the Detroit suburbs, you know, there really is this balance of how do you figure out how to be a house of worship, where your doors are supposed to be open. And yet, everything that's happening in the world is in some ways trying to make us close our doors and maybe even be closed-minded, and I think that we have to fight back against that. These type of actions are to make us think twice, to make me think about the Kipala, the head covering that I wear on my head, when I go outside, and whether that is acceptable to wear, to make yourself known to be Jewish, and I say it's for other faith groups as well.

6:17And the reality is, you have to be proud, you can't hide. That gives the person who is a terrorist, that the win in their ability to make us scared. And that's not the way that we should live our lives, as Jews or as any other, as any other religious tradition. Have you, at Bethel, have to step up your security in recent years? We certainly. I mean, even pre-October 7th, you know, we had done different, we had done a number of different things in regards to our security here in the Omaha Jewish community, and then after October 7th, you know, clearly there was a number of things that we did to make sure that we were both safe, that our congregation was safe, that our staff on a daily basis was being able to be safe when you're in a house of worship and you're here to pray and to celebrate, or even to mourn, but the last thing you want is to be thinking about your own personal security in those places. You mentioned the October 7th, the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on this sense that what happens

7:19overseas inevitably has ripple effects across the rest of the globe, and I should say that there's nothing that excuses the targeting of civilians or people in any house of worship or certainly not children, but I've heard that there has been a sense of heightened concern, heightened fear after the U.S. and Israel launched this most recent war in Iran. Did the launching of that war make you worry more about attacks here? For sure. I think that anybody who would answer that question and say that it didn't make you think twice is simply either naive or they're lying to sound for a better sound bite. But the reality is, of course, things that happen overseas, we have seen affect what happens in this country. I believe quite firmly that the Jewish community in many ways has always been the canary in the coal mine to be able to understand the sense of what is going on with any number of minority groups, both in the United States and abroad.

8:23And so when this war kicked off two weeks ago, at this point, certainly there was a concern of what that would mean for us locally and nationally. But the idea is that, as you stated to a beautifully, nothing kind of just defies attacking a house of worship, a synagogue, a preschool, and so I think we have to live in the reality of the world that we live in. But people come to the synagogue as I hope they go to churches and mosques to pray aspirationally for what the world may look like one day, God willing. So we have to be realists. It's still shocking every time it happens, but we're becoming a little bit numb. I think you mentioned the word PTSD. I think there is a level that the Jewish community, every time these things happen, it opens the wound, and you don't actually get to mourn the previous time has happened, right? As a rabbi, I have now, I should be proficient at writing sermons, and I'm getting proficient

9:25at writing letters to my congregation trying to explain them. That is Rabbi Stephen Abraham from the Bethel synagogue in Omaha, Nebraska. Rabbi, thank you so much for your time. My pleasure. Thank you again.