Clergy and staff members at the temple had just undergone FBI-led active-shooter training in January, according to the bureau's Detroit field office.
Jewish community leaders say the March 12 attack on a synagogue in suburban Detroit shows that antisemitic violence remains a major threat as the Iran war continues -- but also demonstrates community resilience and the value of preparation.
"Our security concerns are what they have been amid the rising calls for violence - that people are going to act on that," said Michael Masters, national director and CEO of Secure Community Network, a Chicago-based organization that helps establish and train security committees in local Jewish communities.
The community as a whole has been working for years to enhance institutional safety and security measures given what it views as an increasingly threatening environment. Fears of such attacks have risen since the Feb. 28 attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel and the assassination of Iran's former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In the five days after Operation Epic Fury began, Secure Community Network observed more than 8,200 violent online threats, the highest number ever recorded over a five-day span. Many included direct calls for violence against Jewish facilities.
In March 12's attack, a 41-year-old Lebanese-born naturalized U.S. citizen rammed his truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan. FBI officials said the attacker died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound as his truck caught fire while exchanging gunfire with two security guards.
Aside from a security guard wounded by the truck, no one else was hurt and more than 140 students and staff at the temple preschool were safely evacuated.
Clergy and staff members at the temple, among the nation's largest Reform synagogues with more than 12,000 congregants, had just undergone FBI-led active-shooter training in January, according to the bureau's Detroit field office.
As the attack unfolded, Temple Israel staffers whisked preschoolers across the street to a country club where they were able to reunite with their parents.
"The community was well prepared," Gary Torgrow, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, said in a news briefing. "Training had been conducted, security protocols implemented, and relationships with law enforcement strengthened.... These preparations mattered. They helped ensure the outcome yesterday was very different from what it might otherwise have been."
Antisemitic attacks tracked
Recent attacks against Jewish institutions and people have highlighted a years-long rise in documented antisemitic attacks.
The March 12 incident came more than seven years after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, where an antisemitic shooter killed 11 congregants, the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
"There can be no justification, excuse or contextualization for attacking, vandalizing or targeting in any other way a synagogue," Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal, pro-Israel nonprofit, said about the March 2026 attack. "Such violence is antisemitism, plain and simple."
But the United States and other nations have seen other antisemitic attacks since the Tree of Life incident. A year after the mass shooting in Pittsburgh, a 19-year-old gunman entered a synagogue near San Diego and opened fire, killing one person and injuring three others.
In December, two people allegedly inspired by the Islamic State opened fire at a Hanukkah event at Sydney's Bondi Beach, killing 15.
Israel's siege of Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel gave rise to new waves of attacks on Jewish institutions with and without ties to Israel.
The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks hate groups and has also supported Israel, has documented 20 terrorist plots or attacks motivated by antisemitism or anti-Zionism in the U.S. since January 2020, according to Carla Hill, senior director of investigative research at the ADL's Center on Extremism. Thirteen of those incidents have occurred since July 2024, Hill said.
In 2024, ADL identified 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the U.S., an all-time high since the organization began tracking such figures.
"When any Jewish person or institution here is targeted with violence because someone has disagreements or problems with the actions of the Israeli government, that needs to be understood as antisemitism," said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a nonprofit that advocates for Israel as the Jewish homeland.
Seth Levi, chief strategy officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said antisemitic attacks have risen for at least a decade, fueled by increasingly mainstream conspiracy theories with origins in white supremacist circles. These include the great replacement theory, or the idea that Jews are importing immigrants to replace white Christian populations.
Meanwhile, some Jewish groups have been critical of some actions by the Israeli government.
"Anybody watching can understand that the Israeli government's atrocities are making all of us, including Jews, far less safe," said Stefanie Fox, executive director of anti-Zionist advocacy organization Jewish Voice for Peace. "Israel is carrying out genocide live-streamed, escalating a war of aggression throughout the region, killing families and children, and then constantly claiming that these war crimes are done in the name of Jews. This is leading to more antisemitism."
Spitalnick said that while increased grant funding for security measures would be useful, "we also can't barricade or prosecute our way out of this crisis."
More democratic forms of resilience such as civil rights education and digital and media literacy are key to preventing radicalization, she said.
The costs of keeping a community safe
According to Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Jewish Federations of North America, Jewish communities in North America collectively spend more than $765 million annually for security measures.
Masters, of the Secure Community Network, described the agency as "the official safety and security organization for the Jewish community," one that works with synagogues, day schools, community centers and other Jewish entities to share information about threats, train community members and coordinate with law enforcement. So far, he said, the agency has trained more than 40,000 community members.
Additionally, security preparations are conducted by institutions themselves; the Jewish Federation of Detroit has a sophisticated and longstanding security program, he noted, as did Temple Israel.
"Institutions like Temple Israel have made significant investments of their own, with their own security director and security team,”Masterssaid.“That’sthe unfortunate reality of Jewish institutions in America today.”