Lisa Lane

Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Michigan was built in 1941, as the Nazi murder machine began its systematic destruction of European Jewry. The Jews of Detroit raised its walls while Jews in Europe were being loaded onto trains. Today, someone tried to destroy it. A truck rammed the front doors. A gunman opened fire. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors were evacuated from the preschool inside. Temple Israel’s own security stopped the attacker before he could do more. We honor them, and we are grateful everyone inside is safe. Thousands of Holocaust survivors rebuilt their lives in West Bloomfield after the war. In 1984, they opened the first free-standing Holocaust museum in the United States, steps from Temple Israel. They did not build a museum to the past. They built a warning about the future. Temple Israel is not just a synagogue. It is proof that Jewish life endures. At the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, we work in the place where the consequences of antisemitism are written in stone. We know how violence against Jews begins. It rarely begins with bullets. But when bullets come, the warning signs have already been ignored. Today’s attack is one of those warnings. It demands more than statements. The people who rebuilt Jewish life in West Bloomfield understood that the survival of a community is not an accident. It requires vigilance. Their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are still here. They are demanding accountability from every level of government, law enforcement, and civil society. So are we.