ReutersA long-serving Jewish Yorkshire MP has called for unity following the attack on a synagogue in Manchester.
On Thursday, Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British man of Syrian descent, drove a car at people outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue before attacking bystanders with a knife. He was shot dead by police at the scene.
Two men killed in the attack were named by police as Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66. Three others remain in hospital.
Labour MP for Leeds North East Fabian Hamilton said: “We’ve got to work much harder on getting rid of this hatred and bringing back community collaboration and cooperation.”
The attack took place on Yom Kippur – the holiest day in the Jewish calendar – in an area of north Manchester with a large Jewish community.
One of the victims killed in the attack was hit by police gunfire as they shot the attacker, Greater Manchester Police said on Friday.
Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis said the attack was the “tragic result” of an “unrelenting wave of Jew hatred on our streets, campuses, on social media and elsewhere”.
“This is the day we hoped we would never see, but which deep down, we knew would come,” he added.
Hamilton, who has been MP for the seat since 1997, said the incident was “a very sad indictment of where we are right now”.
“We’ve got to stop this hatred,” he said in an interview with BBC Radio Leeds earlier.
“This is just accumulation of the kind of hatred that’s been going on for quite a long time now and the Jewish community has been suffering from it, as has the Muslim community.
“We’ve got to make sure that we don’t allow hatred to overcome the solidarity, the community, the collaboration and co-operation between those communities that happens in Manchester and certainly in North East Leeds.”
UK ParliamentAccording to ONS data from 2021, Leeds has the largest Jewish community in England and Wales after London and Manchester.
Hamilton said the solidarity among Muslim, Sikh, Christian and Hindu community groups in Manchester and Leeds had been uplifting.
“In the longer term we’ve got to work much harder on getting rid of this hatred and bringing back community collaboration and cooperation,” he said.
“In the best spirit of this country, a country that believes in liberal democracy, openness, freedom of speech, the right to say what you believe without being castigated and destroyed for it, without being hated for it.
“That’s what really typifies our country and what we all believe in. We need to ensure that that prevails.”
Simon Myerson, chair of the Leeds Jewish Representative Council, said the community had been “devastated”.
He said there were several layers of security worshippers faced at his synagogue – plus evacuation and lockdown proceedures were regularly tested.
“We need to know that people know what to do,” he said.
“Outside there are members of the community, volunteers wearing stab vests.
“That is our normal. It is the same at the school, the Jewish school, the Jewish bakery. It is how we live our lives.”
Mr Myerson said he had been talking to politicians and the police for two years, warning that if “language is allowed to escalate someone will be killed”.
“So yesterday is appalling and devastating and brutal, but what it isn’t is a surprise.
“We are a community who, person for person, are roughly four times more likely to be the subject of a racial attack than any other minority,” he added.
Norma Wineberg said she had been left in “absolute disbelief” at what had happened, especially as her daughter and son-in-law live in Manchester.
She said the synagogue she attended in Leeds had excellent security.
“We’ve just got to take every precaution, it won’t stop me going to the synogogue. We’ve got to continue with our life and hopefully it will never happen again.
“Hopefully the government will do something about this.”
Rabbi Yonosan Golomb was at his United Synagogue in Sheffield when he heard the news.
He told Radio Sheffield his first thought was: “Are we safe?”
He said that instead of thinking about what he could do to better the world in his role, he was instead forced to consider the safety of everyone there, even thinking about how he could evacuate elderly and infirm worshippers.
“That’s the bottom line – Jews killed for being Jews, turning up at a synogogue,” he said.
“Where are we in the 21st Century that we are in that situation?”
Rabbi Albert Chait, senior rabbi to the United Hebrew Congregation in Leeds, said they were sending “huge love and support and solidarity” to the whole Jewish community in Manchester.
“The Jewish community feels very lonely right now,” he said.
“It has fear and uncertainty at a time where we should have been talking about these things weeks ago, months ago, years ago.
“It pains me to say but every single British Jew has been waiting or expecting for something like this to happen.”
Rabbi Chait said it was “a national disgrace” that such a thing should happen “in any house of worship”.
He said much more needed to be done “to protect and care and look after the Jewish community and other communities”.
“So all British people can observe their faith or none and live in peace.”
