Shabbat services at Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, seemed routine on Saturday morning even though a man with a rifle and explosives had driven into the largest synagogue in West Bloomfield, about 40 miles up the road, only two days earlier.
Beth Israel members chanted the final verses of the Book of Exodus, a two-part parashah that focuses on the construction and inauguration of the Tabernacle, right after the destruction of the golden calf. And just beyond the synagogue’s property, antisemitic demonstrators targeted Beth Israel worshippers—exactly as they have done every Shabbat morning for the past 22 years.
