The vehicle ramming and shooting attack on a Michigan synagogue last Thursday was the latest example of a “direct connection between hatred of Israel and hatred of Jews,” Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, a prominent Reform rabbi who leads Manhattan’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, said during a sermon on Friday evening.

From the pulpit, Hirsch urged both the Jewish community and U.S. elected officials — including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — to take seriously the “moral and political blindness” that is “casting a darkening shadow over all that we hold dear.”

“We must grapple seriously with this phenomenon of antisemitism; not only for the sake of the Jews, but for the sake of America,” said Hirsch, one day after the suspect, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, drove a truck full of explosives through the front entrance of Temple Israel, one of the country’s largest Reform congregations, as 140 children were inside the building. 

Armed security stationed at the synagogue engaged with Ghazali who killed himself when his truck caught fire during the gunfight with security officials. One other person —  the synagogue’s director of security, Danny Phillips — was injured.

“It is still the case that decent people see an attack on an American nursery school and are aghast at the brazen immorality, the unfathomable indecency, and the bottomless depravity. They send thoughts and prayers — and these sentiments are sincere. But there is an encroaching moral and political blindness in the West casting a darkening shadow over all that we hold dear,” said Hirsch.

He highlighted a connection between “hateful words and hateful deeds — between bad ideas and bad outcomes.” 

“There is a direct connection between the obsessive and frenzied incitement against Israel, and incitement against American Jews. Everyone knows this. Why is it even controversial to say?” said Hirsch. “If [far-right commentator] Tucker Carlson pulls out of nowhere wild blood libels against Chabad that they pushed America into war — will it surprise anyone if the next Bondi Beach [massacre] is being hatched as we speak? And those on the other end of the political spectrum who shout ‘globalize the intifada’ — they mean Oct. 7 brought to the West, the Midwest and West Bloomfield.”

Hirsch said society “must do the much harder work of eradicating ideologies of hate in our communities. It means facing the problem of extremism and antisemitism head-on. It means acknowledging with honesty that antisemitism today is not only the domain of white supremacists and neo-Nazis.”

Hirsch, a self-described liberal who voiced opposition to Mamdani throughout the mayoral election, called the mayor’s statement on the Michigan attack “half-fine.”

Hirsch said he “welcomed” that Mamdani “expressed his horror, emphasized that his thoughts are with the congregation, called the attack ‘antisemitic violence” and pledged increased NYPD presence at Jewish institutions in New York.  

“But unless you say the second half, the first half is just cover — a distraction — an evasion, a diversion from the source of the problem.”

“What about committing to using the bully pulpit of the mayor to influence greater tolerance for Jews in this city?” continued Hirsch. “What about castigating anti-Israel hate that so influences anti-Jewish hate? Help us understand why the attempted murder of children at Temple Israel is so morally clear while the actual murder and hostage-taking of children in their living rooms in Israel is so morally opaque?”

Hirsch condemned Mamdani’s recent decision to host Mahmoud Khalil, a former leader of Columbia University’s anti-Israel protest movement, at his official residence.  

“The issue is not Mahmoud Khalil’s right to speak, or his immigration status. It is that Mayor Mamdani hosted him for an iftar meal and proudly posted his picture as if he is some kind of heroic freedom fighter. This is the man who said about Oct. 7, ‘we could not avoid such a moment.’ This is the man who called for the ‘collapse of the Zionist project and the ideology that it’s built on.’ Along with upholding his asserted right to free speech, do you have anything to say about the actual content of Mahmoud Khalil’s speech?” 

This past Shabbat marked a gathering of “determination and defiance,” said Hirsch. 

“On some level, to be a Jew is, itself, an act of defiance. We will not cower. We will not cringe. We will not crawl. We have seen it all before, we have survived it all. We are not going anywhere. You can harm us, you can inflict pain upon us, you can kill some of us, but you cannot destroy us.”