Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard condemned the antisemitism he said was behind the recent attack on a synagogue in his Michigan community.
“The community has come together to stand against hate, however it rears its ugly head,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said at a Thursday press conference.
He said that he believes antisemitic hate has been normalized.
“You see kids at colleges being yelled at, bullied, and sometimes assaulted just because they are Jewish,” he added. “We need to stand up and say this is not acceptable.”
On March 12, a man rammed his truck through the doorway of Temple Israel and exchanged gunfire with a security guard before killing himself. The truck, packed with $2,000 worth of fireworks, ignited and severely damaged the building.
It was the third violent incident at a Michigan house of worship in less than a year.
Authorities identified the attacker as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a 41-year-old Lebanese-born American from Dearborn, Michigan. His brother, a commander in the terror group Hezbollah, was reportedly killed in a recent Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.
Mr. Bouchard said that between 2020 and 2024, there was a 344% increase in targeted incidents against members of the Jewish community.
Temple Israel Rabbi Josh Bennett said that what happened on March 12 was not random.
“It was not spontaneous, and it did not occur in a vacuum,” he said at the press conference. “This was the product of hatred that, as the sheriff said, has been allowed to grow in classrooms, in public discourse online, until it became violence. This is not a statistic. These are our children. This is our congregation. This is our community.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said antisemitism had reached “a historic high” and called for everyone to “turn down the rhetoric.”
The attack was “antisemitism at its absolute worst,” she added.
The FBI is investigating the attack as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community,” noting that the suspect had large quantities of commercial-grade fireworks and several jugs of what is suspected to be gasoline.
During the attack, Mr. Ghazali rammed a truck into the building, injuring one security guard, who is now recovering.
The truck ignited after crashing into the building. Dozens of first responders were hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
More than 100 children and staff at a preschool inside the synagogue were evacuated safely.
The children, from ages 1 to 5, were targeted, Ms. Whitmer said.
• Mary McCue Bell can be reached at mbell@washingtontimes.com.
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