‘This is what we’ve been afraid of’: British Jews after the Manchester attack

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:09today the sorrow and fear within britain's jewish community after the manchester terror attack

0:24so i grew up in a lovely place called cheadle which is sort of a suburb of south manchester My grandparents on my father's side were some of the first Jews who moved to the area. There was a synagogue, you know, not far down the road, and my dad was one of the first boys to be bar mitzvahed in that synagogue when it first opened. Abigail Radner is The Guardian's lifestyle editor, who grew up in South Manchester and has now returned there to raise her young family. And there was a Jewish school not far, which remains the only Jewish primary school in South Manchester, which I attended for primary school and where my own children now attend in a very full circle way.

1:12And it's something I'm very proud of today. On the morning of the 2nd of October, she was at home, marking the day of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, getting ready to go to synagogue or shul. Even if you're not particularly religious or particularly observant, which I'm not, Yom Kippur is such a big day for Jews. We go to synagogue both the evening before, which is a special service called Kol Nidre, and the day of. It involves fasting for 25 hours. And it's a real day of reflection. It's about atonement. It's about looking inward. And it's quite a solemn day compared to other Jewish festivals.

2:05I was getting my young family ready for synagogue. So I was getting ready myself and I was in my son's bedroom pulling out his clothes. We wear sort of smarter clothes. Getting ready to take them downstairs to where my children were. and I just heard my husband on the phone, which was quite unusual for Yom Kippur. I myself had switched my phone off, but my husband hadn't. But it was unusual for him to take a call and I heard him walk upstairs and I heard him say, right, okay, and put the phone down and I immediately said, what's wrong? He said, we're not going to shore today. There's been a terrorist attack at Heaton Park Shore.

2:49And I couldn't compute the words. I had to almost, I said them again out loud to him, there's been a terrorist attack in Heaton Park Shul. And, you know, he continued to say, I think the shuls are on lockdown, which meant that nobody was going in and nobody was going out of the various synagogues around the Manchester community. And at that point, I sort of nodded and I just went back to our bedroom and I just sat on our bed and I just cried. And I just cried and cried. And in my head, the thought was, this nightmare that we have been dreading has become real. A few miles across the city in North Manchester, the community where Abigail's parents themselves were born, the worst anti-Semitic attack in Britain in modern memory had taken place.

3:41At 9.30 that morning, the British Syrian Jihad al-Shamie drove up to Heaton Park Synagogue, using his car to ram into the grounds, then attempting to stab Jewish people congregating for Yom Kippur. It was an attack that left two dead and four seriously injured before Al-Shami was shot by police himself.

4:06You know, a few years ago I was asked, what are Jews afraid of exactly? And it just, that question kept going through my mind yesterday. And it's this, this is what we've been afraid of. And it's happened. From The Guardian, I'm Lucy Hoth. Today in Focus, the British Jewish community left reeling after the Manchester terror attack.

4:38Abigail we're talking to you the day after the attack you must be in great shock emotions must be very raw as a member of the Manchester Jewish community living not far from the scene of the attack and as a parent of young children yeah and I kept saying to the friends we were with has this I don't think anything this big has happened before has it you know we I suppose as Jews living in this country in recent years I think you'll find a lot of people saying they weren't especially surprised there's a lot of people saying it wasn't a matter of if it was a matter of when but in that moment I don't think we could really get our head around the enormity of it and I don't think I have yet you know I cannot fathom that there are two members of my community dead and that there are four more in hospital with serious injuries I think whilst we knew the threat level was high and as a community we have been sounding the alarm of the increasing anti-semitism we're facing I think there was part of me and maybe I was just especially naive or I was just desperate to focus on keeping positive and sort of looking forward, which is a very sort of Jewish way of approaching life.

5:57I just didn't maybe I never thought it would be this bad. I feel shattered. I feel broken. And I also feel shattered in that quite colloquial way. I feel so tired. You know, I feel drained. And did your kids go back to school this morning? And if so, how did that feel for you? Yeah, so my kids did go to school this morning. They attend the Jewish primary school. And I was, I drove them in today and I felt sick the whole way. And I was still really emotional. And I was desperately trying to keep it together. And I knew there'd be a a pronounced police presence in front of their school today. And I was wondering how I was going to answer any questions that came my way.

6:49And my seven-year-old just happened to say to me on the way to school, in the way that seven-year-olds just pick conversation topics out of thin air, she said, Mummy, you know how I don't like watching movies? Because she doesn't. She said, do you know why? Because I get nightmares really easily. And in movies, there's often baddies. so I just don't like it and I said well you know I get that but um you know often in the movies we watch the goodies win in the end so you perhaps don't have to write off all movies ever but that as that conversation ended I just thought well what nightmares is she going to get now because well I my husband and I decided to shield them from what happened yesterday as we speak on Friday afternoon she spent a day in school where there has been a police presence where she'll be around other kids you know older kids in the playground it's a small school they all know each other and children talk and I'm wondering what she's heard in the playground and what questions she's going to come back and ask me and I spent I was up most of the night trying to figure out what those questions would be and how to answer them and I just don't have them and I am terrified that she's coming back from school today having learned that someone was killed for being Jewish outside a synagogue that multiple people were killed for being Jewish outside a synagogue on a day when she was due to go to synagogue herself and I dread to think what nightmares are coming and I'm very struck by what you said and that and I've heard others say kind of reading the coverage and listening to the radio in the last few hours is just this sense that it's not a surprise.

8:40That is clearly terrible. But where did that sense come from? And what has fed into that rising anxiety in the last couple of years? I think it's just simply this sort of catalogue of anti-Semitic events that have been happening in this country, you know, whether it's from like a desecration of graves to sort of abuse being held at sort of visibly Jewish members of our community because obviously the sort of more orthodox members of our community they look Jewish they wear the sort of traditional garb etc to what you know our students have been sort of experiencing on campus you know you hear about someone being beaten up and for being Jewish on campus you know I was in in synagogue on Rosh Hashanah Jewish New Year which is just 10 days go.

9:29I was with my own kids in an area that was designated for children on the day. They put on kind of a few activities so that parents can have a bit of a reprieve and go to pray in peace. And I walked past a table of teenagers who I didn't know. And I was basically eavesdropping. And I heard one say, in this kind of very casual teenage chatty way, oh, he's anti-Semitic. He told me and so-and-so to go back to the chambers and I was so struck and it was just the sort of um casualness and with which they were sort of saying these things and I thought that's a very different teenage experience to the way I grew up and I think a lot in the community would say that we've been sounding the alarm for a while and some people have listened um but others there's there's a feeling that our concerns haven't been taken seriously enough and it would have to take something like this as heinous as this to sort of wake people up to the threat that we are facing it's also been striking to hear about the level of policing and security that's quite normal in spaces like synagogues, schools and elsewhere.

10:48I wonder about the impact of these sorts of measures on you and your family. Yeah, and I think in a way, it's just something we've become used to. And it's dire that we've become used to it. Every kid's birthday party that happens in a shaw hall, there needs a security guard there. Every event, you know, whether it be you're going to listen to a Jewish musician or a writer, the location of the event is never revealed until the day of you know and it's and the the bag searches at your holocaust remembrance day it's it's it's root it's part of routine jewish life in this country and as is volunteer security you know the victims yesterday from what i understand were volunteering to keep their communities safe and that is routine across this community my brother-in-law was doing security at my synagogue yesterday my good friend was doing it at his during which he had to wear a stab vest it's it's part of our life and it's horrendous that that's what we do but that but I think it also shows that we want to congregate.

12:05We want to be together. And actually, that's where we find our strength. So we find ways to do that. And we should be allowed to do that without threat. But that is the reality we are facing.

12:28Dr. Dave Rich, you are Director of Policy at the Community Security Trust, CST, which is a charity protecting the UK Jewish community. You're also the author of Everyday Hate, how anti-Semitism is built into our world and how you can change it. There have been many months of warning about a rising tide of anti-Semitism in the UK and a feeling amongst many in the Jewish community that an attack of this nature was tragically a case of when, not if. You at the CST help organise security for Jewish schools and synagogues and other sites and you also track incidents of anti-Semitism in the UK. How much has your work stepped up in the two years since October the 7th?

13:13Every single area of CST's work had increased significantly in the last two years since the October 7th attacks. The number of anti-Semitic incidents increased dramatically, literally on that day. And ever since, you know, a decade ago, if we recorded 100 anti-Semitic incidents in a month, that would be really something. Now, we never record fewer than 200. In the last three months, actually, or June, July, August, we recorded over 300 per month. So it's going up. The amount of online incitement and extremism, the amount of people who we need to report to police because they are expressing a desire to go out and kill Jews online.

13:58So there's been this huge demand and a need for CST to step up, to protect our community, to serve, to answer the demands from our community, but also to enable those people in our community who want to play their part in tackling antisemitism to join us and join that fight. So you've described this past year as one of the worst periods for anti-Semitism for decades. But what does that look like on the ground for Jewish communities going about their daily life? If there is such a thing as an average anti-Semitic incident, and of course they come in all types, the average anti-Semitic incident will be a Jewish person going about their ordinary lives and some random stranger who walks past or drives past them somehow recognises they're Jewish, Maybe they're because of religious clothing, maybe a school uniform, maybe they just, I don't know, look Jewish, for whatever that means.

14:56And this random stranger just shouts abuse at them just because they're Jewish. Now, this sort of thing has always happened. And, you know, until two years ago, they'd be most likely to shout something like Heil Hitler and do a Nazi salute and talk about gas chambers. Whereas for the last two years, they're more likely to call them a genocidal baby killer and shout free Palestine in their face just because they're Jewish. We do get a smaller number of more serious violent incidents. And at the most extreme end of that, of course, is the terrorism of the kind that we saw in Manchester last week.

15:36Tragically, one of those injured in last week's attack in Manchester was a CST volunteer who was working at the Heaton Park Synagogue. How did it feel to hear that that had happened? and what does it tell us about the risks that your volunteers face? So that's correct. One of our volunteers was seriously injured and I can't go into details about exactly what happened, but I will say he acted with immense bravery. I mean, our hearts sank. As soon as we heard an attack had happened, of course, our hearts sank and we always knew there was a risk. We have a wall in our office, a memorial wall, with the pictures of Jewish security volunteers in other countries around the world who have lost their lives protecting their communities.

16:26There is one who was killed by an ISIS terrorist in Copenhagen. There's another who was killed by al-Qaeda in Istanbul. There are seven who were killed by Hezbollah in Argentina. And that's the risk that our volunteers take. And these are ordinary men and women of all ages who we give a high level of training to, and they have to maintain skills and fitness and all the rest of it. But ultimately, they're ordinary people. They're not police officers. They're civilians. And they take on this risk.

17:12so therefore i have great pleasure in introducing our deputy prime minister david lamian before i do please please please please please we know how we all feel we know how we all feel. The day after the attack on Friday, the Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was heckled during a vigil. You are all guilty of all you have allowed to, Adrian, in Manchester, on the street. You have allowed it. You are all guilty. What does that tell us about the strength of feeling amongst British Jews? Perhaps anger, frustration, a sense that their fears about a tide of rising anti-Semitism haven't been taken seriously by the government?

17:58You know, emotions are very raw, understandably, and feelings are running very high. And the Jewish community is not normally a community that expresses itself through anger and through public displays of anger. It's almost a kind of comedy stereotype how sort of reserved British Jews traditionally have been. But there is a lot of anger. There's a lot of anger about the, that there's so much antisemitism and it isn't dealt with. Every week brings another story, whether it's from universities or schools or hospitals or protests or social media or politics of people saying and doing the most outrageously antisemitic things.

18:42And it doesn't get dealt with or it gets excused or the regulator just turns a blind eye. British Jews, I think, I just really feel whatever tolerance was left for any of this is gone. And I think there is real, amongst all the grief and all the shock and all the sadness, there is real anger that it was allowed to get to this stage. And I think there is a feeling that there have been a lot of fine words and not enough action.

19:18Coming up, why the Manchester attack has led to political debate about pro-Palestine protests.

19:37the manchester attack has been instantly politicized there's been a wider discussion about pro-palestine protests and what they represent in this moment their impact on different communities i was very disappointed to see those protests go ahead last night i think that behaviour is fundamentally un-British. I think it's dishonourable. I don't fully get the wisdom of calling off a protest that is not anti-Semitic in order to show that the country cares about anti-Semitism, but it's just the right thing to do, isn't it? Oh, they love it. They love it. They love their chants. They love to shout, free, free Palestine.

20:17They love to shout, from the river to the sea. They love to shout, globalise the Intifada. They love to wear their kefir. They love to cover their faces. And I just think grow up. So because I'm a Jew and because I'm the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I feel compelled to come and do whatever I can to support people who are trying to stop this genocide. There were calls from Downing Street and ministers, including the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, that people should consider pausing demonstrations over the weekend. Ken, there's also been talk about new powers restricting repeated protests.

20:54Clearly, there are many deeply worried about any clampdown on lawful protests. I just wonder about your view on the protests and the debate around them in the last few days. You know, pretty much every terrorist attack that ever happens becomes a political football very quickly. Of course, there is always a right to protest, always. and I think we do have to be very careful about governments wading into stopping any right to protest but I don't think that's what's happening here and I think the balance between the right of protest versus the right of everyone else to go about their lives without disruption the strain on police resources the impact on community relations and community cohesion and the damage which this violent extremist rhetoric has done, that balance has been lost.

21:45And I think the measure the government are talking about are bringing in this measure of cumulative impact, which is not about stopping all protests. It's just about weighing up that balance in a way that is fairer to everyone else. I think it's long past time that was done. But it's a very delicate balance between separating legitimate political protests, people's very real sense of outrage and horror over what's happening in Gaza from hate speech or intimidation that targets British Jews who are in no way accountable for the actions of Israel. Many of our listeners may be feeling both horror at the Manchester attack, but anguish over what's happening in Gaza.

22:29They might attend a peaceful Palestine protest, wanting to express solidarity and concern, but also be anxious not to add to an atmosphere that many Jews find threatening. What would you say to someone who wants to stand up for what they believe in, whilst also helping to ease that tension and division that we're seeing across the country? You know, the very fact that we're talking about the two as sort of two sides of the same whole is the whole problem. And yet, when there's war in Gaza, there's always antisemitism. There's always a rise in antisemitism. There's always terrorism targeting Jews.

23:07That's the problem. The fact that people put the two together in their heads, that's the problem. People want to protest about Gaza, fine, protest about Gaza. There's a hell of a lot to protest about, about Gaza, of course. It shouldn't be too hard to do it in a way that doesn't target Jews, that doesn't use anti-Semitic language, that doesn't claim Zionists control our government and that's why there's war, that doesn't support terrorism and violence, and yet we see this all the time, you know, it shouldn't be difficult. And that's, I think, where the focus should be. And that should be totally separate from when terrorists kill Jews on their way to synagogue on Yom Kippur, that is a racist murder.

23:53It's not a displaced expression of anger over Gaza. If the terrorists, we don't know what was in his head. But if it was about Gaza, that's an excuse. It's an excuse for an anti-Semite who wanted to kill Jews.

24:22Abigail, what response would you want to see from the government, local government, community leaders to make you feel safer? Well, this is a great question because I think people have, in the last 24 hours, referred to this as sort of a wake up moment. And I was driving home from drop off today and I was thinking, so what do they do with it? I don't want to live my Jewish life behind a fortress. I don't. I want to be able to live my Jewish life openly and proudly without fear. how you do that at this stage I don't have the answers and I'm hoping that you know brighter minds than mine or people who work in that particular field can come up with the solutions I don't have them you know I think a lot of us feel slightly that the genie's out the bottle and how you put it back I don't know but I suppose what I keep thinking about is both the strength of the Jewish, Manchester Jewish community and the way we do look after each other and we are there for each other.

25:36And also sort of yesterday there were already sort of signs of sort of solidarity from the wider community, you know, whether it was some like a van driver driving past people on the way to shawl and saying we're with you. This morning there were flowers and notes on our school gates that said you know Manchester supports you and then you know that school's in the middle of a culturally ethnically diverse area and that meant a lot you know and I think I want this to be this wake-up moment to be used as a way of pulling the community together and pulling the country together but I'm fearful of how how it will play out

26:26Dave, how will you and the CST balance making people feel safe but not, in the words of our colleague Abigail Radner, make them feel that they're going about their daily life living in a fortress? I mean, my son's at the University of Manchester at the moment And when I got the call at 9.40 on the morning of Yom Kippur that there had been an attack at synagogue in Manchester, I had to have an immediate conversation with my wife. Do we tell our son not to go to synagogue or not? Because if he does go, he might die. That's not a conversation any parents should ever have to have. But that's the reality of what it means.

27:09And there were Jewish families all over the country that day. Many of them didn't know about it, because it's Yom Kippur, and they weren't using their phones, but many of them did, and had to have that conversation, you know. And this is why I say it is reality, but it is so unreal. And it shouldn't be the case that that's how life is for Jews in modern Britain. And the fact that that is the case tells us that we are failing at something. Dave, thank you so much. Thank you.

27:45That was Dave Rich, Director of Policy at the Community Security Trust. My thanks to him and to The Guardian's Abigail Radner. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Alex Atak and Cass Denton. Sound design was by Ross Burns. And the executive producer was Sammy Kent. We'll be back tomorrow.

28:14This is The Guardian.