The Michigan synagogue attack was personal for this Cherry Hill rabbi, who shares a group chat with a Temple Israel rabbi

The attack on Temple Israel took place hundreds of miles away in Michigan, but it hit home for a Cherry Hill rabbi who shares a group chat with a religious leader at the synagogue.

Micah Peltz, the rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom in Cherry Hill, said his phone started going off while he was in a meeting as the news broke on Thursday. Messages streamed in through a couple of his group chats with rabbis across the country, including one with Rabbi Jen Lader — who works at Temple Israel. She was pulling into the parking lot at the time of the attack, the New York Times reported.

A man armed with a rifle drove into Temple Israel, one of the country’s largest Reform synagogues, which is located in the suburbs of Detroit. The driver’s car caught fire and he was fatally shot by security at the synagogue. Just one person, a security guard, was injured, though 140 young kids were inside during the attack for early-childhood learning, the Associated Press reported.

“It brought everything very close when suddenly you’re hearing from the people directly involved, and also those just down the street and in the community that are very much part of the different networks that you’re a part of,” Peltz said. He said his group chat with Lader is relatively new and was formed for rabbis to think about how they can support Israel from the United States.

After the incident, Lader shared in the chat that the congregants were OK and that the kids had been evacuated from the building, Peltz said. She also thanked her colleagues for their prayers and support.

“It was nice to hear from her and just get that news from her,” he said. “And hopefully the group chats that many of us are on just provided a little bit of strength and sense of how many people are sending their love and support during such a terrible, terrible attack.”

Peltz also received messages about the incident in a chat with rabbis across North America and Israel who met through the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, including a rabbi from another Reform synagogue in Michigan.

He also got a text message from a congregant who has family that attend the Michigan synagogue — another reminder of how small the Jewish population is in the United States. The country’s Jewish population can be difficult to measure, but a 2020 Brandeis University study estimated it to be roughly 2% of the nation. New Jersey is among the states with the highest Jewish populations, at roughly 7%, according to the study. American Jews identify with being Jewish in different ways, whether religiously, culturally, or ancestrally.

“It’s not a large Jewish community really in America and there are a lot of connections from one place to another,” Peltz said. “This hit home for a lot of people.”

Peltz said he connected with Cherry Hill police and the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey about safety precautions when he learned of the attack.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, said in a statement that she was “appalled” by the attack and that her office was monitoring the situation.

“My heart is with Michigan’s Jewish community, and I commend the swift response by security personnel that ensured none of the staff or children were harmed,” she said. “Every person — of every faith and background — deserves to feel safe in their house of worship and in their community."

Lader, the rabbi at the Michigan synagogue, told CBS News that the congregation recently held an active shooter training and has a security team.

“It’s really a miracle that everything worked exactly, exactly the way that it was supposed to work and nobody was seriously injured,” Lader said. She said she received a text from her colleague who was hiding under her desk during the attack.

Jennifer Runyan, the FBI special agent in charge of the investigation into the attack, said it’s being investigated “as a targeted act of violence against the Jewish community.” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has denounced the attack as antisemitic. Michael Bouchard, the Oakland County sheriff, said a security officer was taken to the hospital because he was knocked down by the attacker’s car and 30 law enforcement officers went to the hospital for smoke inhalation.

Peltz said his Cherry Hill congregants were upset but not shocked by the latest attack against Jewish communities in the country and around the world. Such attacks have risen with multiple taking place in recent weeks. Explosives were set off at a Jewish school and a synagogue in the Netherlands in recent days, and three synagogues in Toronto were damaged by gunfire just this month. Earlier this year, the only synagogue in Jackson, Miss., was set ablaze by a 19-year-old.

An Israeli airstrike killed family members of the man who crashed his car into the Michigan synagogue, a Lebanese official told the Associated Press. Israel’s military said that the attacker’s brother killed in the airstrike earlier this month was a Hezbollah commander, the New York Times reported.

The South Jersey rabbi said that while it does seem like the war in Iran is impacting antisemitic attacks in the United States, these attacks have been happening not just since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, but for years, such as the deadly attacks in 2018 at The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and in 2019 at a California synagogue.

“It’s just antisemitism, painful and simple,” Peltz said. “And that Jew hatred that’s becoming more prevalent in America just needs to stop.”