Dan on the attack on Temple Israel in Michigan (INSIDE Call me Back sneak peek)

[Music] You are listening to an art media podcast. [Music] Hi, it's Dan. This is a sneak peek from the members only edition of our show Inside Call Me Back, where we pull back to Curtin and have the conversations we typically have after the cameras stop rolling. I hope you enjoyed this segment and if you want to get the full episode and support our mission at Arc Media, please become an Inside Call Me Back member by following the link in the description or by going to arcmedia.org. That's arkmedia.org. And to all our insiders, thank you. It's your support that keeps the lights on at Arc Media. [Music] Welcome to the Inside Edition of the Call Me Back podcast, where we pull back the curtain and have the conversations that we typically have after the cameras stop rolling. Thank you for subscribing to the show and supporting the Call Me Back podcast and everything we do here at Arc Media. And also welcome to all of those who recently joined us. I'm Yilan Benatar, producer of the Call Me Back podcast and today in the hot seat addressing your questions and personal dilemmas is my partner in crime, Arc Media's Dan Seenor. Dan, welcome back. Thanks, Yilan. This is the second recording we're doing for Inside Call Me Back. Right. Do you want to explain? Well, we were recording yesterday and most of the questions we were responding to were about Iran and there were some very important and interesting and incisive questions actually that we got from our insiders. And then while we were recording this news flashed across our screens and we decided this is really what we have to talk about and that our subscribers will have a lot of questions about this. And we alerted our insiders that if they had questions related to this, they should send them and we would try again to record something that we would release after Shabbat. And here we are late Friday afternoon just before Shabbat comes in and we got a ton of questions, which is quite understandable. And so we're looks like what your plan is is to pick from some of those questions and we'll have a lot of conversation and analysis about Iran and the war on the regular feed and on the inside call back feed in the days ahead. But this one that seems like it's going to for a very good reason be focused on what happened in Michigan on Thursday. Okay, then so first I'll do to you what you do to our guests typically in the first question. Can you just bring us up to speed? What do we know about this attack as of now late afternoon on Friday? Obviously news is developing minute hour to hour in some cases, minutes and minute in terms of what we know. But I'll just provide the basics for those who may have not been following it very closely on Thursday afternoon. There was a terrorist attack against a large synagogue temple in suburban Detroit in Michigan and Oakland County, Michigan, which is a large congregation, perhaps the largest congregation in Oakland County, Michigan, reform, synagogue and a terrorist who has now since been identified as I'm in Muhammad, and I'm in the area of the Detroit area of the Detroit area, the area of the Detroit area, the area of the Detroit area, in the news, and he basically tried to drive a car. It sounds like loaded with explosives into the temple. He physically drove the vehicle into the like smashed through the doors and into the temple. I guess tried to make it down the hall and ultimately got out of the vehicle with the gun and there was a security official security guard with the temple who thank God was armed and well trained, which we'll get into. And he was able to shoot this terrorist and that's where it ended as far as we know what we've learned since then two things that are important. I think this individual had some family, some relatives in Lebanon who it is being reported had ties to Hezbollah, perhaps very active ties to Hezbollah. Some who are I think trying to rationalize, rationalize maybe too strong a word but are trying to make sense of what happened, say that he was radicalized by the war over the last two and a half years. And his family members were killed in Lebanon. Yeah, but it's not just their family members are killed. They're family members with real very direct concrete ties to Hezbollah. That's what we know about him so far. The most upsetting part of this entire story, I guess, I mean, there's so many aspects to it that are upsetting is that at the temple, there's a school. There were 140 children there, yet very young children there when this happened and I would say it's a miracle that the card didn't get farther into the building. The card didn't actually explode, but to think that he probably knew, one assumes that he knew that there were children there. And but for and I get I don't want to say miracle because it was the miracle but for a well trained well armed security guard at the school, God knows what would have happened next. And so that's what we know about what happened. And I should say one other thing, you may hear me in this conversation, make some references related to the incident that imply a level of familiarity with this place in this community. I'm certainly not an expert, but I should disclose that I spent a number of years working in Michigan politics. And over the course of those years and then the decades after I've maintained very close ties to the Jewish community in that exact area in the Oakland County, Southeast Michigan, suburban Detroit area. I know the synagogue. And so a lot of what happened yesterday once we stopped recording was me hearing from her reaching out to many friends of mine in the community who are either very involved with that congregation and just very involved with the Jewish community. And so I will say, you know, I've lived there, know the community as our listeners know I spend a lot of my formative years growing up in Toronto where oh, by the way, there were two shootings in the last seven to 10 days at synagogues in Toronto. And it's not only that we're living through this normalization of violence against Jews that we can just see almost every single day, but it just so happens that these incidents that synagogue can Michigan and the synagogues in Toronto. I'm talking to a lot of people who are in my life and my world and my community and my network who are directly impacted. And so these things are always upsetting. This is like doubly triply quadruply upsetting just based on these conversations I've been having with friends. So you've taken 24 hours to kind of collect your thoughts where you're at. I guess have a few thoughts. I'm trying to understand if I had to explain to someone who doesn't see what's right in front of them beyond just saying it's the oldest hatred and anti-semitism rears its head and law enforcement and the FBI and different NGOs say there's an alarming rise in anti-semitism. Which is true. There is an alarming rise in anti-semitism. But that only tells a very surface part of the story. What we are seeing right now is something we as American Jews and I would say Jews in the diaspora because it applies to Canada and Australia and the UK. And I mean, really you talk about Bandaibich, you talk about the synagogue attack last fall during the Huggie and Manchester in the UK or you talk about as I mentioned what's happening in Toronto. Or we can just I mean it's actually happening everywhere. This is something we've never seen. This is not just an alarming rise in anti-semitism. I saw someone on X a Yashar Ali who's not Jewish post that it's this is not an alarming rise in anti-semitism. This is a pandemic of Jew hatred. Alarming rise in anti-semitism. I think he made me at this point almost sounds like it's a statistical exercise. Oh wow, we're seeing an uptick. We should be alarmed by that. Yes, of course. But that's almost like a clinical description of what's happening. There is this pandemic as he puts it of Jew hatred and it's being spreading like a pandemic because it's being normalized and because it's being rationalized. And because leaders are not stepping in and basically willing to risk their political careers to shut it down. So that is what is a proper description of what's happening. Then we get to the so why is it happening again as I said we could say it's the oldest hatred which it is. But if I wanted to like think about the different inputs one input obviously is these wars over the last two and a half years and the images are very upsetting to a lot of people. So if you are someone on the edge if you are someone that is already radical and unhinged it is conceivable that these kinds of images could radicalize you further when I say further radicalize you to the point that you do something really destructive and dangerous and homicidal. Although that explanation or that input doesn't entirely make sense to me because there are images of violence and have been images of violence that we see from all over the world and it just doesn't have this effect right over 30,000 we think Iranians citizens innocence were slaughtered in Iran earlier this year. So we were seeing images of what was going on we didn't see any kind of activation of violence against other ethnic groups over here in response by some ethnic groups against other ethnic groups during this I was thinking about the peak of the Syrian civil war where there was blood shed on a scale that is I mean with staggering. And we didn't see any kind of response during the peak of the civil war in Sudan I mean there was endless appropriately a lot of coverage about the human catastrophe there or look at the days after October 7th actually the days after October 7th we were inundated with images of the worst kind of brutality against innocence and barbarism that one could possibly imagine and there was no violent acts activated here as a result so that's why saying well people are upset and the radicalized and they've been seeing these images. image and it just further radicalizes them, it's not a sufficient explanation. So then you go to the next input, which is what is distinctive about this pandemic of Jew hatred, which is the frustration with images, people say they're seeing, you know, that they're subsetting them in the Middle East is being transitioned into violent acts against Jews here. And that is being normalized, as I said, that is being legitimized. And there's just language being used in the media. There's language being used by politicians, you and I talk a lot, we talk a lot about a podcast about the, I've been very concerned about what Mamdani is doing, which is trying to draw this distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and that he thinks as mayor of New York with the largest Jewish community of any city in the world outside of Israel, that he thinks he can fight anti-Semitism and keep Jews safe while trafficking in the absolute worst and most dangerous dog whistles that one could possibly traffic in that encourages violence against Jews. I mean, just in a post a few days ago, he posted about referring to the ongoing genocide and this constant ongoing genocide and calling Israel a Nazi state. And is it easy for those who are upset and agree with Mamdani? By the way, but agree with Mamdani about those things and agree with other leaders who use that language on the left and the right. Is it easy for them to take action against what's being described as the Nazi state as the apartheid state as a genocidal state? No. So what's the next thing you can do? The easier thing you can do, the quintessentially softer target you can pursue, Jews at a synagogue in suburban Detroit because those Jews are supporters of Israel. Those Jews have a connection to Israel. So therefore those Jews at Temple Israel have ties to Nazism and to genocide and to apartheid. So I can confront the apartheid the genocide and the Nazism by driving a car and trying to kill it looks appears 140 children in a much easier and achievable way than I can by taking action against the state of Israel. And that notion that Jewish communities are now going to be held responsible for the policies Jewish communities over here are going to be held responsible for the policies of the state of Israel. And people are going to take matters into their own hands to exert some kind of pain and punishment against Jews over here. Once you go down that path, it is never ending. Everything can be rationalized against in terms of the pandemic of Jew hatred. It's already happening. That is like a factor of the climate. Like that's where the climate is a lot. The Jew hatred is just now part of the conversation. And you know, you and I talked offline yesterday like how do you shut down the climate? It's not easy. You know, in a world in which people are, you have total freedom to say whatever the hell they want on social media and you know, it's just that the whole media ecosystem has become so much more decentralized and there's so many pathways now to communicate messages and disseminate messages. So it becomes much harder. However, I think leaders, particularly political leaders and have a responsibility to do their best to shut it down. Will they be able to shut it down entirely? No. But they're doing the opposite actually. They're doing the opposite than trying to shut it down. Their silence, as I said, and they're playing with these dog whistles is encouraging this violence. It is creating a more permissible environment for people to rationalize this violence. And I, I have never said this before on our podcast alone, but I during his campaign for mayor, I know a number of rabbis who've told me this a number of them who met with him as a group. And this is when he was trying to build channels into the Jewish community and build relationships and try to improve relations in the Jewish community. And they said to him, look, we're not going to agree on everything. Obviously, we're certainly not going to agree on Israel. But if you want to help bring down the spread of anti-Semitism and the violence that flows in our city, the language you use is undermining that you're playing a dangerous game by talking about genocide. You are playing a dangerous game. You don't appreciate or maybe you do, they said to him, you don't appreciate what what bad actors in our city and in other cities here when they hear you use that language. And he still does it. And they've said to him, these are dog whistles. So that to me is a very fixable input is what our leaders do and what sense of responsibilities are leaders feel they have. And the third is security. And I guess a number of the questions have to do with security at Jewish institutions, which we can get into. But I will say today, according to Eric Fingerhead at the Jewish Federation of North America, based on a study he released just recently. But as of today, about three quarters of a billion dollars with a B three quarters of about seven hundred and seventy million dollars is being spent in the United States on security for Jewish institutions. It's a staggering, staggering, high number. I'm sure that's shocking to you that that much. I mean, I bet many people are didn't realize that that's how much is being spent. And that's a combination of funding from the community. It's mostly funding from the community, also in a grants from federal and local law enforcement. But the point is approximately a quarter of a billion dollars is being spent on security for Jewish institutions. And it's not enough. And we can get into that, but it's not enough because it's the only thing we can rely on. We can't rely on political leaders to be responsible. We can't rely on radicals in our own society, being more discerning about the images they see and having some context and perspective before they decide to kill some Jews. The one thing we can control is are we deploying sufficient security and our institutions? That is why, really that is why 140 kids are alive right now was because of a well trained security guard who had gotten training from the FBI from the Detroit office in how to deal with an active shooter situation. Just recently, I from an understand the training was just recent. And this I know as a focus of the institutional Jewish community. And if we're going to have flourishing Jewish life, it's got to be an even bigger focus in a higher priority. Since dropping this announcement last night, our community of insiders is really poured in with some questions. So and from the upper way side of New York is asking, an on Jewish friend immediately linked the Michigan and the old dominion tax to the war with Iran. I was surprised and I reminded her of skyrocketing anti-semitism even prior to 10/7. And of course, during the current war with Iran. In what ways do you predict this war linked anti-semitism narrative could evolve on each political side? That's it for a sneak peek today. If you want to catch the full episode, please subscribe to Inside Call Me Back by following the link in the description or by going to arcmedia.org. That's ARKmedia.org. Your support is what allows us to do what we do here at Arcmedia. I hope to see you there. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Juan Benatar. Arcmedia's executive producer is Adam James Levin Aready. Our production manager is Brittany Cohn. Our community manager is Ava Weiner. Sounded video editing by Liquid Audio. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Seenor.