By Elena Durnbaugh
Gongwer News Service
It was a miracle that the more than 100 children at Temple Israel left their school in West Bloomfield safely last week after an attacker rammed through the building with the intention of opening fire, Rep. Samantha Steckloff said during a press conference on Monday.
But just because it was a miracle, that doesn’t mean it was an accident.
Steckloff, D-Farmington Hills, along with Rep. Noah Arbit, D-West Bloomfield, Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Bloomfield Township, and Oakland County Treasurer Robert Wittenberg joined Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel at a press conference Monday morning to speak out against antisemitism.
All five elected officials are Jewish.
“When something like this happens, it reverberates through every part of our community,” Wittenberg said. “This was not just an attack on one building. For many people in our community, it felt like an attack on every Jewish person in Michigan. … This is intolerable, and people need to stand up and say enough is enough.”
Nessel said that six weeks ago, Temple Israel hosted the FBI for an active shooter drill to prepare for a mass casualty event.
“Sadly, these weren’t held out of an abundance of caution, they were held out of an abundance of need,” she said.
Steckloff said that during the last few years, the Legislature has appropriated $19 million to support security training, including coordination with law enforcement and facility security improvement.
This year, Steckloff said she, Arbit and Moss would be pushing for more funding.
“The events of this week demonstrate that these investments matter,” Steckloff said. “The training the teachers and the staff received was implemented. Security protocols were followed, and emergency responders were able to coordinate quickly. These measures helped ensure that every child made it home to their family. … We want to make sure that every congregation in this state, make sure that every school, Jewish schools and our Jewish community centers have the opportunity for those same dollars and those same trainings.”
Jews should not be held accountable for the actions of the Israeli government, Moss said, nor should they be targeted for expressing any relationship with the Israeli nation.
“This attack was an anti-Israel driven form of antisemitism, which is the very specific crisis we’re going through in this moment,” he said. “Temple Israel displays an Israeli flag, and almost every synagogue in Metro Detroit displays Israeli flags. Temple Israel is built so that the sanctuary faces towards Jerusalem, just as every synagogue in the world faces towards Jerusalem, because that's the direction in which Jewish people pray. Congregants in Temple Israel pray for the welfare of the land of Israel and its inhabitants, because that's in the daily and weekly Jewish prayers in Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Judaism. But if you display or express any of that, what most Jews define as Judaism, you become ripe for what others believe are legitimate attacks about Israel. And that is the antisemitism we need to address.”
Prevention begins by better understanding the problem, Arbit said.
“When you attack a Jewish synagogue because you oppose Israel's military actions? That's antisemitism. When you vandalize a Jewish-owned business because you oppose Israel's leaders?
That's antisemitism,” he said. “When you hound and harass Jewish elected officials because they refuse to disavow their support for Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people? That's antisemitism.”
Arbit said that American Jews are deserving of equal treatment in civic, economic, social, cultural, economic and academic spaces regardless of their stance on Israel, its leaders or its policies.
“Anything else is pure, vile, dangerous antisemitism,” he said.
To combat antisemitism, Arbit said people needed to combat radicalization.
“What we can do is train parents, teachers, coaches and peers to recognize the signs of radicalization and intervene before it becomes violence,” he said. “What we can do is fund programs that deter hate and targeted violence in the first place.”
Nessel said Michigan has been ahead of the curve in fighting domestic terrorism.
“For decades, we've had better laws than every other state in the nation and even the federal government,” she said.
There is still more that can be done, though, Nessel said.
She urged the Senate to pass SB 502, which would specify that a person threatening to commit an act of terrorism and communicating the threat would have to know that the communication would be viewed as threatening violence to be guilty of violating the anti-terrorism statute.
The bill would outline that a person would be guilty if they threatened to commit an act of terrorism and communicated the threat with reckless disregard of a substantial risk that communication would be viewed as threatening violence.
“This minor statutory change should have broad-based support,” Nessel said. “Threats of terrorism are simply too serious to risk weakening our ability to respond, and the attack on Temple Israel only underscores the incredible seriousness of this need.”
Nessel said she talked to Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, about the bill over the weekend, and Brinks said she planned to move the bill for a vote as soon as possible.
“I certainly hope that you know not only that the Democrats in the Senate will vote for it, but that the Republicans will also support it,” Nessel said. “This is absolutely as bipartisan as it can get. And my hope is then after that, that (House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township) will take this very seriously and understand the great importance now, more than ever, of having an anti-terrorism law like this on the books.”
Michigan needs more than better laws, though, the elected officials at the press conference said.
“If antisemitism was such an easy and simple thing to snuff out, we would have snuffed it out already,” Moss said. “What it really depends on, as well, are non-legislative reactions: the goodwill of people to speak out and say that they, too, can't tolerate this in their community.”
Gongwer News Service
It was a miracle that the more than 100 children at Temple Israel left their school in West Bloomfield safely last week after an attacker rammed through the building with the intention of opening fire, Rep. Samantha Steckloff said during a press conference on Monday.
But just because it was a miracle, that doesn’t mean it was an accident.
Steckloff, D-Farmington Hills, along with Rep. Noah Arbit, D-West Bloomfield, Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Bloomfield Township, and Oakland County Treasurer Robert Wittenberg joined Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel at a press conference Monday morning to speak out against antisemitism.
All five elected officials are Jewish.
“When something like this happens, it reverberates through every part of our community,” Wittenberg said. “This was not just an attack on one building. For many people in our community, it felt like an attack on every Jewish person in Michigan. … This is intolerable, and people need to stand up and say enough is enough.”
Nessel said that six weeks ago, Temple Israel hosted the FBI for an active shooter drill to prepare for a mass casualty event.
“Sadly, these weren’t held out of an abundance of caution, they were held out of an abundance of need,” she said.
Steckloff said that during the last few years, the Legislature has appropriated $19 million to support security training, including coordination with law enforcement and facility security improvement.
This year, Steckloff said she, Arbit and Moss would be pushing for more funding.
“The events of this week demonstrate that these investments matter,” Steckloff said. “The training the teachers and the staff received was implemented. Security protocols were followed, and emergency responders were able to coordinate quickly. These measures helped ensure that every child made it home to their family. … We want to make sure that every congregation in this state, make sure that every school, Jewish schools and our Jewish community centers have the opportunity for those same dollars and those same trainings.”
Jews should not be held accountable for the actions of the Israeli government, Moss said, nor should they be targeted for expressing any relationship with the Israeli nation.
“This attack was an anti-Israel driven form of antisemitism, which is the very specific crisis we’re going through in this moment,” he said. “Temple Israel displays an Israeli flag, and almost every synagogue in Metro Detroit displays Israeli flags. Temple Israel is built so that the sanctuary faces towards Jerusalem, just as every synagogue in the world faces towards Jerusalem, because that's the direction in which Jewish people pray. Congregants in Temple Israel pray for the welfare of the land of Israel and its inhabitants, because that's in the daily and weekly Jewish prayers in Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Judaism. But if you display or express any of that, what most Jews define as Judaism, you become ripe for what others believe are legitimate attacks about Israel. And that is the antisemitism we need to address.”
Prevention begins by better understanding the problem, Arbit said.
“When you attack a Jewish synagogue because you oppose Israel's military actions? That's antisemitism. When you vandalize a Jewish-owned business because you oppose Israel's leaders?
That's antisemitism,” he said. “When you hound and harass Jewish elected officials because they refuse to disavow their support for Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people? That's antisemitism.”
Arbit said that American Jews are deserving of equal treatment in civic, economic, social, cultural, economic and academic spaces regardless of their stance on Israel, its leaders or its policies.
“Anything else is pure, vile, dangerous antisemitism,” he said.
To combat antisemitism, Arbit said people needed to combat radicalization.
“What we can do is train parents, teachers, coaches and peers to recognize the signs of radicalization and intervene before it becomes violence,” he said. “What we can do is fund programs that deter hate and targeted violence in the first place.”
Nessel said Michigan has been ahead of the curve in fighting domestic terrorism.
“For decades, we've had better laws than every other state in the nation and even the federal government,” she said.
There is still more that can be done, though, Nessel said.
She urged the Senate to pass SB 502, which would specify that a person threatening to commit an act of terrorism and communicating the threat would have to know that the communication would be viewed as threatening violence to be guilty of violating the anti-terrorism statute.
The bill would outline that a person would be guilty if they threatened to commit an act of terrorism and communicated the threat with reckless disregard of a substantial risk that communication would be viewed as threatening violence.
“This minor statutory change should have broad-based support,” Nessel said. “Threats of terrorism are simply too serious to risk weakening our ability to respond, and the attack on Temple Israel only underscores the incredible seriousness of this need.”
Nessel said she talked to Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, about the bill over the weekend, and Brinks said she planned to move the bill for a vote as soon as possible.
“I certainly hope that you know not only that the Democrats in the Senate will vote for it, but that the Republicans will also support it,” Nessel said. “This is absolutely as bipartisan as it can get. And my hope is then after that, that (House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township) will take this very seriously and understand the great importance now, more than ever, of having an anti-terrorism law like this on the books.”
Michigan needs more than better laws, though, the elected officials at the press conference said.
“If antisemitism was such an easy and simple thing to snuff out, we would have snuffed it out already,” Moss said. “What it really depends on, as well, are non-legislative reactions: the goodwill of people to speak out and say that they, too, can't tolerate this in their community.”
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