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Synagogues size up security after Michigan attack amid intensifying risks
Jewish security professionals say the attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs Thursday highlights a need for Jewish institutions to prepare for more such “two-staged” assaults in which attackers use both a vehicle and weapons, as the threat of antisemitic violence grows following the Israel-U.S. launch of war on Iran.
“We crossed a threshold yesterday in terms of the way we think about Jewish security,” said Mitch Silber, who runs the Community Security Initiative in New York City. His organization is considering helping to pay for synagogues around the city to have at least two guards capable of stopping assailants who are carrying knives or guns.
Right now, some synagogues in the city only have a single unarmed guard intended to serve as a deterrent. “You need to have not one but multiple armed guards on the external part of the institution certainly for as long as the war continues,” Silber said. “An unarmed guard is insufficient given the nature of the threats we seem to be facing.”
But following years of massive investments in security infrastructure and a rising number of antisemitic incidents, many Jewish leaders say they were saddened but unsurprised by the attack on Temple Israel, in which an assailant armed with a rifle and smoke bombs drove his truck into the building before being shot and killed by a security guard, and already feel prepared to address such threats.
“The Jewish people are constantly attacked,” said Rabbi Natalie Shribman of Temple Kol Ami in West Bloomfield, Michigan, located just half a mile from Temple Israel. “So unfortunately, my fear remains at the same level of heightened.”
Shribman is from Pittsburgh, where a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 killed 11 congregants. At Temple Kol Ami, the congregation already has a security guard who carries a concealed weapon.
Shribman said she would follow the West Bloomfield police department’s guidance if it recommends additional security — but so far, it hasn’t recommended any changes.
Years of investment
One reason that more synagogue leaders may not be scrambling is that many already feel prepared. “The Jewish community has been at an 11 out of 10 for many years now,” said Rusty Rosenthal, a former FBI agent who runs regional security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.
Adam Zimmerman has spent the past decade teaching Hebrew school at Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, Maryland — a job description that as of late includes running security drills with police officers and keeping a constant eye on the door.
When he enters the building, he passes multiple armed guards.
“We get so used to it that sometimes we don’t even notice. And the fact that we’re so used to it speaks to the type of environment we’re living in,” Zimmerman said. “What the incident in Michigan exposed yesterday is that every time Jews gather anywhere for any reason, we are at risk of harm.”
“Jewish life in America is now accompanied by security presence.”
Rabbi Rick KellnerCongregation Beth Tikvah
The Jewish Federation of Detroit, which covers the region where both Temple Israel and Kol Ami are located, has one of the longest-running security programs in the Jewish community, spinning it off into an independent organization four years ago.
Temple Israel hired Danny Phillips, the guard who was injured in the attack, as its full-time security director in June and he oversaw a sophisticated operation that included a combination of in-house security team with metal detectors, guards for hire, police and even overhead drones during events like High Holiday services.
Nationwide, the Jewish community spends an estimated $765 million each year on security, according to the Jewish Federations of North America — representing an investment that surged in the aftermath of the Tree of Life shooting.
Rick Kellner, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Tikvah in Worthington, Ohio, also said that was when his synagogue increased its security. The congregation pays police officers who are regularly stationed outside the synagogue.
“Jewish life in America is now accompanied by security presence,” Kellner said. “That is a reality that we are facing and living with every day.”
Iran war prompted new measures
Even before Thursday’s attack, Kellner said his congregation had taken extra precautions in recent weeks amid heightened security concerns related to the Iran war. Secure Community Network, which coordinates nationwide security for synagogues and other Jewish institutions, said during a briefing on Friday that the number of violent social media posts aimed at Jews nearly doubled in the week after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran and has continued to grow.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in calls for acts of violence targeted at Israel and the American Jewish community not only by Iran but also on Russian-linked forums, on al-Qaeda and Islamic State forums and white supremacist forums,” said Kerry Sleeper, chief of threat management at SCN, which sent a bulletin warning about these threats to its members on March 1.
Michael Masters, director of SCN, said that his main advice for Jewish institutions was to focus on maintaining the kind of active shooter training and “layered” physical security that has been encouraged for years — including bollards, window film and limiting public access — while increasing communication with local law enforcement.
Cost a consideration
But all these steps can come at a steep cost. Temple Israel advertises itself as the nation’s largest Reform synagogue, with more than 3,000 families, but smaller congregations and Jewish nonprofits can struggle to afford the $90,000 to $160,000 it can cost each year for an armed security guard or director.
Even properly installed bollards meant to stop vehicles can also cost thousands of dollars and require government approval to be installed on sidewalks outside of buildings.
A poll of Conservative synagogues last year found that most congregations assessed a separate fee to members for security costs, and some charged participants for security at life cycle events like bar and bat mitzvahs.
Millions of dollars in security costs are covered by the federal government in the form of grants from the Department of Homeland Security, but those dollars have been repeatedly tied up during the second Trump administration. They were initially frozen as an apparent cost-cutting measure, before being partly released last June after the shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. and the fire attack in Boulder, Colorado.
The federal government subsequently added restrictions to the grants, including a requirement that synagogues receiving the funding eliminate diversity programs and cooperate with immigration enforcement — requirements some congregations have deemed intolerable — and they’ve again been frozen after Congress failed to fund DHS.
Gary Togrow, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, said on Friday that the money should be released and the total pool increased to $1 billion. He and other leaders have also called for more flexibility so synagogues can use them to pay for more security in addition to camera systems and physical infrastructure improvements.
While much of the conversation about security in the aftermath of Temple Israel has suggested a certain fatalism that threats of antisemitic violence will persist, some leaders have focused on a simpler appeal: discouraging the attacks themselves.
Rabbi Josh Weinberg, a vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote an article Friday titled: “Stop Shooting at Synagogues,” referencing both the Temple Israel attack in addition to those in Canada and Norway.
He said that while the Temple Israel attacker’s motive remains unclear, his assault felt like yet another sign that anger at the Israeli government is being directed toward Jews.
“Attacking synagogues is not OK. And don’t blame kids at preschool for war,” Weinberg said in an interview. “I mean, that’s not terribly profound.”
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PEN America president, defending Israel’s critics, resigns after report warns of threats to Jewish authors
(JTA) — The president of PEN America resigned over the weekend in protest of a report on boycotts targeting Jewish and Israeli authors, part of yet another round of internal division over Israel at the literary free-speech institution.
Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-American novelist and Bard College professor, told The Atlantic he was stepping down because he believed the PEN report, “A Silent Moratorium,” failed to defend the free-speech rights of participants in the movement to boycott Israel.
“It’s the First Amendment that allows all of us to engage in boycotts, not PEN America,” Mengestu told the publication. “PEN America as a free expression organization is supposed to defend that right.”
The author did not respond to multiple Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment, but in an Instagram post Monday alluded to an interest in creating a new organization to rival the prominent nonprofit, which defends the free expression rights other writers.
In response to an interview request, PEN sent a statement to JTA saying it was “grateful” for Mengestu’s leadership and would “respect” his decision. The statement also alluded to PEN’s own past turmoil: “We tell hard stories, in politically challenging moments, about writers from a range of perspectives, even when it’s uncomfortable for us given our own recent history.”
In its report, published on its blog, PEN described “Jewish and Israeli writers who feel that the mainstream literary world is increasingly shutting them out because of their identity, nationality, or views.” Interview subjects include several Israel critics, as well as literary agents who assert that they face more difficulties signing Jewish authors after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and amid the subsequent war in Gaza. The report also repeatedly cited a JTA report about a 2024 viral list of “Zionist” authors to boycott.
Among other details, PEN’s report revealed that Israeli novelist Etgar Keret and public radio host Ira Glass had cancelled a planned live event in Australia over fears of threats and protest.
“This silencing and exclusion of writers is a threat to what PEN America is fundamentally committed to defending: a culture of free expression for all,” according to the report.
In addition to the report, PEN also altered its institutional policy toward cultural boycotts, which the organization has long opposed. Although its report on Jewish authors asserted that boycotts “threaten the free expression rights” of their targets, the revised guidelines say that the group will also defend the right of writers to participate in boycotts.
Mengestu’s resignation comes at a perilous moment for Jews facing cultural boycotts, both within the standard-bearers of PEN and elsewhere. PEN’s Jewish former longtime CEO stepped down in 2024 following months of blowback from rank-and-file authors who felt the organization was insufficiently critical of Israel and caused PEN to cancel a festival for global authors.
Since the leadership change, PEN leadership has published and retracted a condemnation of a boycott effort trained at an Israeli comedian and also published a report cataloguing Israel’s “cultural destruction in Gaza.”
Mengestu had assumed the role of board president in 2025. But PEN’s report about Jewish and Israeli writers on Thursday, he wrote, “makes clear that [change] will not happen.”
The Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply troubled” by Mengestu’s resignation Monday. “Freedom of expression means opposing efforts to boycott, silence, or exclude writers because of their identity or nationality,” the organization tweeted, saying that the author’s decision to leave PEN over his objections to the report on Jewish authors “sends a chilling message.” Jewish authors also objected.
“Imagine running a free expression org and resigning because it refuses to blacklist authors based on their nationality,” the author David Zweig wrote on X, musing whether Mengestu would object to boycotting authors from his birth country: “Ethiopia doesn’t exactly have a good human rights record.”
In response to The Atlantic’s story that quoted sources from inside PEN who were critical of his resignation, Mengestu wrote a lengthy Instagram post Monday in which he stated, “This piece is about trying to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” criticized past PEN reports critical of the BDS movement, and added, “What PEN America fails to understand is that boycott is a form of dialogue.”
He announced his intention to “help make something better,” receiving affirmative comments from notable authors including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Angela Flournoy, Jewish pro-Palestinian novelist Jess Row and Pulitzer Prize-winner Benjamin Moser, author of a forthcoming history of Jewish anti-Zionism.
Other Jewish authors on the left were among those defending Mengestu’s decision to step down.
“Dinaw is one hundred percent correct that this kind of fake victim propaganda can be used to support anti-Boycott legislation which violates the First Amendment and is everywhere as popular support for Palestinians grows,” author Sarah Schulman wrote on Facebook. Calling PEN’s blog about Jews “one of those fake anti-semitism pieces,” Schulman added, “If PEN wants to survive, they have to get out of the Israel/Zionism business.”
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Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide
(JTA) — The Church of England’s legislative body voted Monday to encourage churches across England to engage with a document produced by Palestinian Christians that accuses Israel of genocide despite requests from Jewish organizations and Britain’s chief rabbi to reject it.
The document is titled “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” and is also known as Kairos II, after the Palestinian Christian movement Kairos Palestine that produced it. It describes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide, states that Israel is a “colonial enterprise built on racism,” and says decades of “occupation,” “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The vote on Monday does not adopt the accusations as church doctrine but says the church should hear the documents as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians,” and to engage with them in order to better understand the conflict.
Ahead of the debate in York, several Jewish organizations expressed concerns, and Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis asked Synod members to reject the amendment. Mirvis called Kairos II “deeply concerning” and that it “risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building” between Christians and Jews.
“It is truly shocking that a document which purports to speak in the name of truth contains so much falsehood,” he said.
Afterwards, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Phil Rosenberg, issued a statement calling the passage of the motion “highly problematic.”
“Kairos Palestine may come from a place of genuine pain, but the falsehoods and distortions of Kairos II, including its erasure of Jewish identity and experience, is a prescription for more division and not the answer to conflict in the Middle East,” he said.
“This document reflects the pain and trauma of the Palestinian people. As a pastor, I hear the cry of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers — a cry that rises from the ruins of Gaza, and from the violence and oppression of the West Bank,” she said.
She added, ”I also hear the concerns of the chief rabbi, the co-leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, and the Board of Deputies, and I thank them for their honesty.” She said the church remained opposed to antisemitism and committed to safety for Israelis as well as Palestinians.
The Synod debate followed Mullally’s visit to the West Bank in June, where she met Palestinian Christian communities in Birzeit. During the visit she said, “I will use my role as Archbishop to seek the peace you desire and the freedom you deserve.”
The debate marks the ascendance of Israel-related issues in another major church, after the Catholic Church’s Pope Leo XIV angered Jewish groups soon after being elected last year by endorsing an investigation into whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
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Mike Pence denounces alleged arson of Israeli flag in his Indiana hometown
(JTA) — Former Vice President Mike Pence has weighed in against antisemitism after officials in his Indiana town say a costly fire may have been caused by arson to an Israeli flag displayed on a local barn.
The alleged arson broke out early Friday morning, damaging a historic home in Zionsville, Indiana, where Pence lives, and causing an estimated $150,000 in damages, according to the Zionsville Police Department.
Zionsville Mayor John Stehr said during a press conference on Friday that officials believed the fire began when an individual set fire to an Israeli flag that had been displayed outside the building alongside an American flag. The town later announced that the FBI had joined the investigation and that officials were examining whether the arson “may have been motivated by bias” but said no determination had been made.
“Absolutely despicable,” Pence tweeted on Sunday. “There can be no tolerance in America for Antisemitism or political acts of violence, and it is heartbreaking to see in our adopted hometown of Zionsville, Indiana. We thank God no one was hurt and urge anyone with information to contact law enforcement.”
Pence has long cast himself as a staunch supporter of Israel, including after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, and has also repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism in the conservative movement and beyond.
Republican Indiana Sen. Jim Banks also condemned the alleged arson in a post on X Saturday. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated. Not in Zionsville. Not in Indiana. Not anywhere,” Banks wrote. “Thank you to the federal, state, and local officials working to bring the perpetrators of this despicable arson attack to justice.”
On Sunday, the Jewish community in central Indiana hosted a rally condemning the alleged arson attack, chanting, “We will stand up,” according to local outlet Fox 59. While Zionsville does not have a large Jewish community of its own, other suburbs of Indianapolis have significant Jewish populations, and Zionsville is also the longtime home of a Reform movement summer camp, the Goldman Union Camp Institute, which is in session now.
“The founding fathers founded a country where we have the ability to resolve differences among each other; we don’t do it by firebombing homes,” rally organizer David Schiller told Fox 59. “It’s inexcusable and unacceptable.”
The Zionsville Police Department did not respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the status of the investigation on Monday.
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