They Were Lifelong Democrats. Then a Terrorist Attacked Their Synagogue.

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Michigan — Elise Otis and Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed agree on just about everything, she said—from abortion rights to DEI to taxing the rich. There’s just one thing standing in the way of her casting a ballot for him: what Otis alleges is “his hatred of Jews.”

“Everything else I 1,000 percent agree with,” said Otis, a 55-year-old Jew and lifelong Democrat. “But I can’t support someone I don’t think will keep my family safe.”

Otis is one of more than a dozen members of Temple Israel, one of the largest Reform synagogues in the country, who told me they will not be voting for El-Sayed this November. The synagogue, which sits about 30 minutes outside of Detroit, has historically been home to a liberal congregation—performing gay commitment ceremonies as early as the ’90s—and a bastion of Democratic support. And yet, a member of the temple’s leadership said she expects about 70 percent of congregants to vote for El-Sayed’s Republican opponent Mike Rogers on November 3. Some of the Temple Israel members I spoke with have never voted for a Republican in their lives. A few, including Otis, are still considering whether to vote at all in the Senate race.

“I’m nowhere near a Republican,” said Otis, who shared that she will likely vote for Rogers, the Donald Trump-endorsed former House representative. “He’s the lesser of two evils.”

She added: “He will help keep the Jewish population safe, and I have to support that because I’m raising Jewish kids.”

Six months ago, Otis, a teacher at Temple Israel, was putting her classroom of toddlers down for a nap when she heard a bang so loud she thought the roof had caved in. Instead, Hezbollah supporter Ayman Ghazali had rammed a truck loaded with ammunition, $2,000 worth of fireworks, and 35 gallons of gasoline into a side entrance beside the synagogue’s day-care program. One hundred forty children were inside. The attacker’s truck became wedged in the hallway, preventing him from exiting his car. Ghazali exchanged gunfire with security guards, one of whom suffered a shattered leg in the attack. Then Ghazali shot himself in the head as his car caught on fire. Smoke billowed down the hallways, and sprinklers drenched every crevice.

No one else died that day. But for many congregants at Temple Israel, the attack was a wake-up call. Several told me they thought antisemitism was largely a relic of the past—something that had happened to their grandparents or in other places, not in America.

A second trauma, some congregants have told me, was how 41-year-old El-Sayed, a staunch anti-Israel advocate, responded to the attack in the aftermath.

“Hurt people, hurt people,” El-Sayed said in a video message uploaded to YouTube the day after Ghazali’s assault.