I was sitting in economics class at my Jewish day school on Long Island on Thursday afternoon when the breaking news alert hit my inbox. The email, which read “Police responding to ‘active shooter alert’ at major suburban Detroit synagogue,” set off alarms in my mind.

When I clicked on the link, my screen filled with images of smoke rising from the familiar facade of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, a synagogue where my grandma worked, my mom grew up, and my older sister had her baby naming. A synagogue that I visited just a few months ago, and where I have family and friends today.

It was an agonizing 90 minutes as members of both my family and the greater Jewish community held their breath for any news. After we received word that the attacker, later revealed to be a 41-year-old immigrant from Lebanon, had been shot by temple security after ramming a car filled with explosives into the synagogue, which hosts a preschool of around 200 children aged 2 to 5, I called my mom.

“I keep imagining the terrified faces of the babies,” she said to me, her tears audible.

My family and I live more than 600 miles away from Temple Israel. Yet the Jewish heart transcends those boundaries, crying out for our brothers and sisters in fear.

For my mom, Temple Israel was never just a synagogue. It was where my uncles learned the........

© The Jewish Week