Community
Muslim leaders show solidarity with Reform shul in Cambridge after Yom Kippur attack
Beth Shalom Reform Synagogue has been working with the local Muslim community for some years
October 16, 2025 10:36
Beth Shalom Reform Synagogue has been working with the local Muslim community for some years
October 16, 2025 10:36A Cambridge synagogue has revealed that on the day of the Yom Kippur attack, a prominent local Muslim organisation sent them a message of solidarity.
Following the car-ramming and stabbing by Jihad Al-Shamie outside Heaton Park Synagogue, the CEO of the Cambridge Muslim Trust, Abdul Kayum Arain, sent a message of condolence to Beth Shalom Reform Synagogue, which said: “Your Muslim brothers and sisters stand shoulder to shoulder with you in grief and in solidarity. Your pain is our pain, and we share in your mourning.
“We are united in our determination to confront hatred and antisemitism in all its forms. Such violence has no place in our society. It must never be allowed to divide us, but instead must strengthen our shared commitment to compassion, justice, and peace.”
Mike Frankl, a trustee of the shul, said: “It was a beautiful message, which we read out to the community at the start of Neilah. It was very moving.”
In a further show of solidarity from the Muslim community, on Succot, the imam of Cambridge’s Central Mosque, Sejad Mekic – who had also reached out after the Manchester attack – came to the synagogue’s succah, where he addressed the 400-strong congregation.
“Imam Mekic spoke about the message of love, respect and compassion to be derived from the Succot prayers and expressed his strong solidarity with the community following [the terrorist attack] in Manchester,” said Frankl. “He showed a real willingness to work together.”
Frankl added that it felt “very comforting to have the support of the Muslim community and to know that the leadership of the community are our friends”.
Beth Shalom has enjoyed a good relationship with the mosque since the start of the war in Ukraine, when both communities began hosting interfaith services to pray for peace in the region. More recently, members of the Jewish community were invited to join a guided tour of the mosque.
Frankl said that he would like to strengthen ties between the two faith groups by holding football matches between teenagers and starting groups for women and medics.
Local churches also reached out to the synagogue to express support following the terrorist attack on Heaton Park Synagogue, which claimed the lives of two congregants, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, and left three others critically injured.
Other Beth Shalom members are involved in strengthening Jewish-Muslim ties, including Fiona Karet, who has been working with Frankl; and Ed Kessler, founder of the Woolf Institute, which has taken a leading role in coordinating much of the interfaith work in Cambridge.
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