What I saw as a British rabbi after the Manchester synagogue attack punctured Yom Kippur

We’ve known something like this would happen for years. But that didn’t make it less shocking when it happened.

After attacks on Jewish shops, schools and synagogues across Europe, it felt like a matter of time before something would come to our shores in the United Kingdom. But an attack on a synagogue on Yom Kippur — this is particularly painful. There’s something about violence coming into a sacred place, at a sacred time, that feels particularly violating.

I was leading services as a rabbi at my synagogue in Borehamwood, in the London suburbs. Soon after 10 a.m. someone brought a message from our amazing security guard Vince: There had been an attack in Manchester, and all synagogues were asked to lock their doors. My son was complaining that he wasn’t allowed to play football outside any more.

I shared the news with one of gabbais, the lay leaders helping to run services, to ask her for advice. Her shocked face reminded me that she has siblings in Manchester. Looking around our congregation, I realized that so many have connections in Manchester — people born there, with family there, who went to university there.

We slipped out of the service to talk to Vince. He said that four were wounded and the police killed the attacker on the scene. He confirmed a synagogue was targeted but didn’t know which. He said there was a concern of copycat attacks — or worse that this would be a wider coordinated offensive. We were shocked.

As Vince protected the front of our shul, I wondered about our congregation inside. None of us had phones on for Yom Kippur — nobody else would know the news. Do I share something like this and unsettle everyone? I wondered. If so, how and when? Do we say Tehillim (Psalms for safety)? Services would be going on until after 2 p.m., but with lots of people leaving earlier, should we say something about leaving quickly and not lingering outside? Would I be making a pastoral announcement, or a spiritual, or a safety one?

Usually I’d have my network of rabbis on the phone, discussing how to respond, sharing resources and support, but in a moment like this (another, obviously, was Simchat Torah in 2023) you need to decide in the moment. So I waited until the point in the service where we say prayers for the Royal Family and for Israel. I shared what I knew, with a heavy heart, and asked for people to not linger outside the building when leaving. And we said Psalm 130, asking for the wounded to be healed and to know only safety and protection in the future.

By the afternoon, Vince shared that there were casualties. He shared the awful nature of the attack: a car ramming, stabbing, an assault on the door of the synagogue, something that looked like an explosive vest. Yom Kippur, with its themes of life, death and judgement, weighed heavily. I updated the community and asked that we have the souls of those killed in our prayers at Neilah, the service that concludes the holiday.

I worried about Vince. This kind bear of a guy who bounds towards us to carry the Torah to relieve us. Who already knows all the light switches in our new building, including the funny one that trips the fuse and needs resetting. Who locks up for us and is fiercely protective. I saw for the first time that someone like him is the first in line, and that tough as he is, nobody could have prevented what happened in Manchester.

This will have ripples for so many people. Most, of course, for the bereaved families, and for those at the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue, and in Manchester generally. And also for the security guards who were the first line of defense.

But it also now it feels like a step change — England is now a place where something like this has happened, along with too many others to name. I continue to believe that most people are good and kind, and the messages that flooded in from non-Jewish friends and colleagues confirm this (more from Muslims than any other faith).

I can see that things will shift in the United Kingdom. Our already tight security will get tighter. I’m more grateful than ever for the Community Security Trust, the Jewish communal security agency — and so very sorry they need to exist. I fear deeply for our already fragile interfaith relationships, which need strengthening now more than ever. My kids heard far too much — I worry what this will do to our children’s psyches. And my community: how best to hold them through this now and in the future?

One thing I know clearly is that we must continue to walk tall, continue to come to shul, and to live our Judaism proudly and positively. And we must treasure and cultivate our relationships with non-Jewish friends and colleagues more than ever and not see this as a moment to turn inwards in mistrust. None of this in defiance or for defensive reasons, but simply because Judaism is amazing for a thousand positive reasons, and because it deserves to take a dignified place alongside the many faiths and cultures in the United Kingdom.