In a moment that could have ended in tragedy, two rabbis from Temple Israel said that preparation and training helped ensure that “everything went right” during a March 12 attack on the Reform congregation in the western suburbs of Detroit.
The truck-ramming attack by a gunman, who wound up driving into the synagogue in West Bloomfield, Mich., triggered lockdown procedures, a massive law-enforcement response and panic among parents rushing to get their children. The gunman shot at police officers, who returned fire, killing him.
Authorities say Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, rammed a vehicle into the building and opened fire before being fatally shot by security personnel. The synagogue’s director of security was injured, and dozens of officers were treated for smoke inhalation from a resulting fire.
All 106 children in the synagogue’s early-childhood center were evacuated safely, along with staff and congregants.
Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny, who has served on Temple Israel’s clergy since 2004, told JNS it was “a terrifying experience and also a miracle.”
“Everyone who was trained to do what they were supposed to do did what they were supposed to do, but it was still a miracle that everyone came out alive today,” she said.
Rabbi Josh Bennett, who has been a member of the congregation’s clergy since 1994, told JNS he felt “grateful and a little bit overwhelmed,” adding that “because of our preparedness and because of the heroic actions of our team, we are on the good side of this story.”
‘Hugging and holding parents’
Kaluzny told JNS she was driving to the temple when she received text messages from people inside the building saying they were hiding under desks and could hear gunfire.
“I couldn’t process what they were saying,” she said. “A couple of emergency vehicles blew by me. If I’d been there two minutes earlier, I would have been turning into the temple.”
By the time Kaluzny arrived, police had blocked access to the building. She ran toward families gathering nearby as parents arrived in panic.
“My role became hugging and holding parents who were screaming and crying,” she said.
Teachers and staff quickly moved children out of the building, Kaluzny told JNS. “Some of the older kids thought they were on some kind of adventure,” she said. “They were singing songs. They were clapping their hands.”
“A first group of kids came out of the building, and I grabbed the children,” she said. “And then we began the task of collecting parents.”
Shenandoah Country Club, located about half a mile from Temple Israel, opened its doors as a reunification site. The rabbi told JNS that some parents walked long distances because of road closures to reach their children.
Kaluzny said she soon learned that security personnel had confronted and neutralized the attacker while staff followed emergency procedures practiced many times before.
“Everything went right,” she said. “Our teachers remained calm. They followed exactly what their training was. Our security guards knew exactly what to do.”
“They ran towards the problem. They ran towards what everyone else runs away from,” she added. “And because everyone was trained and vigilant and everyone knew what to do, it went right.”
“And that’s how 106 children and all the staff got out of the building today alive,” Kaluzny told JNS.
‘A lot of adrenaline’
Bennett, who rushed to the scene after hearing the news, also stressed the importance of safety and security measures.
“The tragedy is that we as the Jewish community have to deal with this,” he told JNS, citing metal detectors, security teams and active-shooter drills.
“But it is because of that work that we were able to safely secure our building and take our children to safety,” he said.
After the “long and difficult day,” Bennett said, “My body is still vibrating from the inside out.”
“It’s just overwhelming,” he told JNS. “There’s a lot of adrenaline that pumps, and the come-down happens. It’s just a lot to process.”
During the immediate aftermath, Bennett said he was stationed across the street at the Chaldean Cultural Center, an Iraqi Christian community center that also served as a reunification location.
“It was a lot of pastoral care, a lot of calming people down,” he told JNS, adding that it was a “silver lining that the kids didn’t experience this in the same way that we adults did.”
Bennett emphasized the need for Jewish communities to be prepared.
“There are so many communities out there where things went tragically differently, and thank God today everything that we’ve unfortunately had to prepare for worked,” he said.
Bennett told JNS that the “most important is the partnership that we have with law enforcement,” pointing not only to local police and fire departments but also to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“When you are prepared, and you have relationships, and you have the program in place, the outcome does not have to be tragic,” he said. “We’re never going to remove evil from the world, but we are going to stand strong against it.”
