Crime scene: two men were killed and three others injured when a synagogue in Manchester was attacked yesterday, Yom Kippur
Quietly, with dignity, but also with great caution and much grief, members of the Croydon Synagogue will assemble for the weekly Shabbat service tonight, just as they do on most Fridays through the year.
They will gather behind fences and locked doors, with special patrols on the streets outside, watching for any suspicious activity.
That is not Croydon Synagogue’s response to yesterday’s attack on a Jewish place of worship in Manchester, where two men were murdered, but a daily vigil that they have to undertake out of fear of antisemitic attacks.
The family of one of the men killed yesterday in Manchester have said they are “heartbroken” by his death in a terror attack which lasted six minutes, but is liable to have lasting ramifications for Britain’s Jewish community.
The attack occurred on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar.
The men were killed after an attacker used a car to ram into the grounds of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall, then stabbed worshippers in what has been reported as “a rampage”.
Three others were seriously injured in the attack.
The attack came to an end when police fired two shots, killing the knifeman.
The two men who died at Heaton Park Synagogue in north Manchester were named by police this morning as 53-year-old Adrian Daulby and 66-year-old Melvin Cravitz. One of the men is thought to have been hit by police gunfire as they attempted to halt the attack.
Police named the attacker as Jihad al-Shamie, 35, a British citizen of Syrian descent.
Three other people – two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s – have been arrested “on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism”.
The attack occurred despite the security precautions in place in Manchester, just as they are at most synagogues in Britain, including Croydon.
Croydon Synagogue: there’s no mention of the address on the synagogue’s website
Today, a spokesperson for the Croydon Synagogue told Inside Croydon that they routinely have security patrols outside the building, especially during services and holy days.
These are sometimes conducted by the CST, the Community Security Trust, a vigilante group of around 2,000 volunteers whose mission is to protect “British Jews from terrorism and antisemitism”.
The Croydon Jewish community was founded in 1908 and is now the oldest Jewish community in south London. Such is the caution that the Croydon Synagogue has to take to avoid antisemitic attacks, they do not publish their address on their website.
Visitors to the synagogue, perhaps wishing to worship there for the first time, have to provide recognised ID documents before they are allowed in, and even then they are checked at the door. “The door is on a chain. It’s always on a chain,” the spokesperson said.
Following the Manchester attack, police said that they would be increasing patrols and offering additional security to synagogues across the country.
Unmentioned, and rarely seen, the police already provide considerable support because of the threat of antisemitic attacks.
Policing the Jewish high holy days has been “a massive operation, probably the second biggest operation to New Year’s or Notting Hill Carnival, to actually protect those communities”, Nick Aldworth, a former national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, told the BBC.
Recorded antisemitism in Britain rose by 600% in the period after October 7 2023.
The massacre of more than 1,000 people in Israel has “tragically turbocharged” antisemitism in Britain, said the journalist, Jack Kessler. According to figures from CST, in the week following October 7, there were 416 anti-Jewish hate incidents in Britain — higher than any subsequent week.
Which explains why Britain’s Jewish community remains cautious and vigilant.
Eli Haffner, who is on the board of an orthodox synagogue in Manchester, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that preparing for an attack is something “deep down we know it’s something that was going to happen”.
Guards, patrols and high fences are “something we’re used to”, Haffner said.
“I think things are going to get worse,” he added.
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There is no place for antisemitism, or any other racism, in our society. No one should have to live in fear because of their race or religion.
The recent rise in antisemitism and islamophobia has been fuelled by false and ignorant claims that being Jewish means supporting the genocide committed by Israel or being Muslim means supporting the Hamas attacks or similar terrorist atrocities – it’s wrong and must stop.
Britain is, and always has been, a home to people of many different beliefs and backgrounds. We need to end the politics of hate that focuses on our differences and tries to drive us apart. We should recognise that we have more in common with each other and that living and working together will make life better for all of us.
Everyone of all races and religions are welcome in our community and should be able to live their lives in peace and security.
I agree with Peter entirely but it would be helpful if he could clarify his party’s stance regards the definition of antisemitism, is the IHRA one merely ‘advisory’? Does the deputy leader of your party accept it without caveats?
Why are you shit stirring? Whose agenda are you furthering?
Don’t you remember the witchhunts based on false allegations of antisemitism in Labour not so long ago? This has all the hallmarks…
I appreciate that years working in politics can make one see smears and malice in anything, however my (unanswered) questions were straightforward and agenda free. The Green Party wants a greater national role, fair enough but that does involve being clear what are your policies, particularly if they seem to differ from all other major parties on IHRA.
Like the Tories, Labour and LibDems, the Greens have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. Unlike them, the Greens have also adopted the 2021 Jerusalem Declaration.
The latter was created by scholars in Holocaust, Jewish and Middle East studies to address concerns that the IHRA definition was being used to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel.
As reported in The Jewish Chronicle, the Greens have recently been debating the definitions in the context of whether they had been weaponised to stop legitimate criticism of Zionism and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
You won’t find healthy discussions like that in Labour or the Conservatives