WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (BP) – Ric Worshill, executive director of the Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship, has long hailed the importance of onsite security amid increasing antisemitic attacks on synagogues and Jewish gatherings.
After a man – said to be mourning civilian family members killed in Lebanon in Israel’s fight against Hezbollah – drove his truck through the front doors of a Michigan synagogue March 12, Worshill said the security detail made all the difference in safety.
“It is a blessing that this synagogue had a security detail on duty. This is what I have been speaking about,” Worshill, a North American Mission Board chaplaincy ambassador and retired police officer in Illinois, told Baptist Press. “Jewish and Messianic congregation members are increasingly concerned for their safety. If there were no security people, the number of injured or killed worshipers could have been many.
“There are many synagogues that don’t have any security,” Worshill said following a spate of terrorist attacks, including a March 12th attack by a U.S. citizen and ex-convict who reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he killed an instructor and injured two others at Old Dominion University in Virginia. ROTC students subdued and killed the attacker, law enforcement announced.
In Michigan, onsite security shot and killed the attacker, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, as he drove his truck through a hallway of Temple Israel while synagogue staff and 140 children at a synagogue early childhood center were on site. Staff and children were not injured, the synagogue confirmed to the Associated Press, and a security officer hit and knocked unconscious by Ghazali’s truck suffered no life-threatening injuries. The synagogue began to fill with smoke emanating from the truck, police reported.
Michigan Southern Baptists condemned the attack and took time to pray today (March 13) for the synagogue, located about a mile from Heart and Soul Community Church, a Southern Baptist congregation, said Ed Emmerling, executive director of the Baptist State Convention of Michigan.
“While we may have theological differences, we love our Jewish neighbors and stand firmly in support of their right to gather without fear or threat to worship according to their convictions,” Emmerling told Baptist Press. “We pray for peace, safety, and unity in our communities.”
Emmerling joined members of The Michigan Coalition, a mostly Greater Detroit group of churches working together to advance the Gospel, in praying for the synagogue as the coalition held a regularly scheduled meeting. He said such acts remind believers that every faith community deserves the freedom to gather and worship without fear.
“The Baptist State Convention of Michigan condemns the attempted attack,” he said. “Violence against any place of worship is unacceptable and grieves us deeply.”
Ghazali, whose Lebanon origins NBC News reported are leading law enforcement to investigate whether his family is tied to Hezbollah, was granted naturalized U.S. citizenship in 2016, the Department of Homeland Security reported. Ghazali entered the U.S. in 2011 on an immigrant visa related to his marriage to a U.S. citizen, DHS told reporters.
Ghazali’s two brothers, a niece and a nephew were killed at their home in an Israeli airstrike as they had their evening meal during Ramadan about a week ago, a local official in Mashgharah, Lebanon told the AP.
At Old Dominion, ROTC members are credited with subduing and stabbing to death Mohammad Bailor Jalloh after he shot three people, including Lt. Col. Brandon Shah who died at the hospital. Shah was a professor of military science and decorated combat veteran.
Jalloh, a 36-year-old former member of the Virginia Army National Guard, was on parole after pleading guilty in 2016 to providing material support to the Islamic State, NBC News reported.
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