• A naturalized US citizen from Lebanon drove a truck full of fireworks and gasoline into West Bloomfield’s Temple Israel on March 12, investigators say
  • No Temple Israel staffers were hurt in the attack and the attacker reportedly killed himself at the scene
  • Temple Israel invited photojournalist Emily Elconin, who is Jewish, to document the devastation left behind after the attack

Emily Elconin says she felt a duty — as a photojournalist, as a West Bloomfield native and as a Jewish person — to accept Temple Israel’s invitation this week to document the devastation left after the March 12 attack on the synagogue and early childhood learning center

The images she produced — of melted photographs on the wall, of food left uneaten when children and their caretakers rushed for cover — reveal the “miracle that further tragedy was prevented,” Elconin told Bridge Michigan on Thursday.

Investigators say no Temple Israel staff or children were injured when Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a naturalized US citizen from Lebanon, armed himself with a rifle and loaded his truck full of fireworks and gasoline before ramming his truck through the doors of the synagogue while children were in the building. 

Ghazali exchanged gunfire with Temple Israel security before reportedly killing himself after being trapped in his truck, which had caught fire. Israel’s military said four of Ghazali’s relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon earlier this month, but the FBI said the motive for the attack remains under investigation.

A fire-damaged hallway
Fire damaged the hallway at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield after, according to police, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali drove a truck through the front doors of the synagogue in a March 12 attack. (Courtesy of Emily Elconin)

The day of the attack, Elconin, who still lives in Metro Detroit, was tapped by Getty Images to photograph the scene, which she called “disorienting.” 

RELATED: 

She lives 3 miles from Temple Israel and her mom works just more than a mile away. Though she attends Temple Shir Shalom, her cousins had celebrated bar and bat mitzvahs at Temple Israel. Elconin had recently photographed an event there.

Photos melted by fire
Photos on the wall of a main hallway at Temple Israel were melted in a fire started after, according to investigators, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali drove his truck through the doors of the synagogue on March 12. (Courtesy of Emily Elconin)

Her mom begged her not to go to the scene, but Elconin said she told her mom, “I’m already on my way.”

As a journalist, “we are where we are and covering your own community is something that no one ever prepares you for,” Elconin said Thursday.

“I was just grateful that I was able to provide imagery that day that captured the scene and hopefully relayed to other people the perseverance of the Jewish people.”

Less than a week later, the rabbi at Temple Israel asked her to return.

A fire-damaged hallway just outside an early childhood learning center
The damage to Temple Israel in the March 12 attack reached to the doorstep of the synagogue’s early childhood center. No children were hurt in the attack. (Courtesy of Emily Elconin)

She walked through the synagogue on Monday wearing an N-95 mask to protect her lungs from potential chemicals still lingering in the air. The floor was soaked by the sprinkler system that helped douse the flames. It reeked of fire.

“It’s kind of like seeing all of our worst fears come true,” she said Thursday. 

The photos, she hoped, would “give the community space to heal, but also these pictures are our reality. It’s important to show people what happened.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Eclonin told Bridge Michigan. “It’s a lot to stomach. It’s something that will sit with me for the rest of my life.”

Food is left half-eaten on tables in a classroom
Food is left half-eaten on a table in the early childhood center at West Bloomfield’s Temple Israel, where children and staffers took shelter when an armed man drove his truck through the doors of the synagogue on March 12. (Courtesy of Emily Elconin)

To those not connected to West Bloomfield or the Jewish community, she hoped the photos would show “that antisemitism is a threat to Jews everywhere and … these things can happen anywhere, anytime.”

The photos were posted on Temple Israel’s Facebook page on Thursday. In a social media post, the synagogue said it did so because other media outlets had shared footage of the damage and it wanted to reclaim the narrative.

A damaged doorway
A scene of the destruction left at West Bloomfield’s Temple Israel after an armed man attacked the synagogue on March 12. (Courtesy of Emily Elconin)

“Our community deserves to see our building through eyes of love, not through the lens of spectacle. This is our sacred space, and we will be the ones to tell its story,” the synagogue wrote in a post.

(Editor’s note: Bridge has hired Eclonin as a freelance photographer)

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under our Republication Guidelines. Questions? Email republishing@bridgemi.com