For British Jews, this Yom Kippur will be unlike any in living memory, marked by the first anniversary of the Heaton Park synagogue attack.
A year ago, worshippers at the Manchester synagogue were attacked by an Islamist terrorist who drove a car at people outside before assaulting them with a knife. Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed and others seriously injured. Jihad Al-Shamie had chosen the holiest day of the Jewish year, knowing that large numbers of congregants would be gathering to pray, and the attack became a watershed in the history of this community.
That history contains persecution, exclusion and prejudice, yet the modern experience in this country differed markedly from that of so many Jews on the continent. Britain stood against Nazi Germany and was never occupied; while the Nazis and their European collaborators deported Jews to the camps, British troops helped liberate them. And while Jews elsewhere endured decades of murderous terrorism, deadly antisemitic violence here remained exceedingly rare.
That distinction fostered a particular confidence: not that prejudice had disappeared, but that Jews could live here more openly and securely than in much of the Western world. Heaton Park damaged that sense of British exceptionalism. This Yom Kippur, worshippers are likely to encounter a heightened presence of guards and police. As Rabbi Daniel Walker of the Heaton Park synagogue recently said: “I think we're actually almost in a harder position than we were even immediately after the attack.” That should trouble all of Britain, not merely its Jews.
The most immediate murderous threat comes predominantly from Islamist extremism. Only last week, marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis warned that “extreme Islamism has continued to stain our world”, while MI5 chief Sir Ken McCallum warned that “mass-casualty terrorist ambition endures”, citing the recent conviction of an Islamist extremist who sought automatic weapons for an attack on Manchester’s Jewish community.
Yet violent extremism does not exist in a vacuum. It sits within a wider climate in which antisemitism has become more socially permissible and, in some places, almost routine, visible in professional bodies, unions, universities, schools and cultural institutions. There is also the familiar manoeuvre by which “Jew” is replaced with “Zionist”, while the rest of the accusation remains recognisably traditional antisemitism. Criticism of Israel is plainly not antisemitic, but Britain cannot pretend that the obsessive demonisation of Israel and the worsening atmosphere for British Jews are wholly unrelated.
It is in this environment that government rhetoric matters. British Jews neither expect nor seek immunity for Israel from criticism, and ministers are entitled to pursue whatever policies they believe serve Britain’s interests. But governments also shape the political climate at home, and Labour has presented its latest measures against Israel in inflammatory terms, describing them as a response to a “moral emergency” and speaking of “ethnic cleansing” and possible “war crimes” that are a “stain on the conscience of the world”. At a time when hostility to Israel so readily bleeds into hostility towards Jews, ministers should weigh their words with care.
Yet the lesson of Heaton Park is not simply one of fear. The attack also revealed something extraordinary about British Jewry: worshippers and security staff acted with great courage, the community rallied around the victims and their families, and Jews in Manchester and across Britain refused to retreat from their communities. The attacker’s purpose was to terrorise Jews out of public Jewish life, and he failed.
That determination matters as we approach Yom Kippur. Yes, we will have to be vigilant, but vigilance is not surrender. British Jews will go to synagogue, fast and pray, gather with our families and communities, and refuse to allow those who hate us to determine how visibly or confidently Jewish life is lived in this country.
Nor are we alone. Police officers stood between the attacker and further bloodshed at Heaton Park, while political leaders and countless fellow citizens expressed their solidarity. There remains a large and decent majority which understands that an attack on Jews is an attack on Britain itself.
Something was imperilled at Heaton Park: an assumption of safety that previous generations of British Jews were fortunate enough largely to possess. It can be secured only if this country confronts Islamist extremism, resists both the normalisation of antisemitism and the demonisation of Israel, and makes clear, in word and deed, that Jews will not be intimidated out of public life.
To get more from opinion, click here to sign up for our free Editor's Picks newsletter.