On Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, there was an attack on a synagogue in Manchester. Two people were killed, several others injured. Our community is in shock, grief and fear. When I saw the news of the attack, I thought of my father; how he likes to arrive at synagogue early because he doesn’t want the rabbi to have to wait too long for a minyan. The men who were killed may have been doing the same. It is devastating.
No one should face violence when taking part in religious worship or communal life. On Saturday night, a car was set on fire outside a mosque in East Sussex, an incident that is rightly being treated as a hate crime. Further afield, Israel’s genocide in Gaza marches on, despite the US President Donald Trump’s circus of a “peace plan”. Activists on board the Global Sumud Flotilla, a coordinated effort by international volunteers to bring aid to Gaza by sea, were abducted by Israeli forces.
I mention these different events together because the systems that run our lives – and the politicians in charge – care so little for our collective safety that communities are being pitted against one another; our fear, grief or need for support becomes relevant only when it can help to serve a political agenda – usually one that involves targeting the vulnerable. I have spoken with many Jewish friends who feel completely despondent after the attack last week. How do we find our way out of this?
The UK is becoming increasingly hostile to minorities and marginalised communities. As Reform UK rises in the polls and the far right marches in our streets, our government daily reveals its incapacity – or unwillingness – to offer a clear alternative to racist, divisive and violent politics. Rather, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his ilk appear to prefer to fuel culture wars, speaking in slogans that make all of us more vulnerable, but especially Muslims, people of colour, asylum seekers, trans folks and Jewish communities, too.
We’d barely had time to absorb what had happened in Manchester before the media kicked into gear, and politicians wasted no time in weaponising our pain to slander the pro-Palestine movement. The Prime Minister called for a Defend Our Juries vigil planned for Saturday afternoon, a protest against the ban on direct action group Palestine Action, to be called off, to “respect the grief of British Jews”. More shamefully, the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, then capitalised on Thursday’s horrendous attack by announcing the prospect of broader police powers to further restrict the right to protest. It gives the impression that supporting the Jewish community in the UK is in opposition to upholding civil liberties and human rights, when we know that all minority communities – including Jews – benefit from them.
