Hundreds of mourners gathered in wind and rain Friday for a vigil that combined grief and defiance in the remembrance of two men who were killed when a knife-wielding assailant attacked their synagogue in the English city of Manchester on Yom Kippur.
Standing behind the police cordon that still surrounds the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in the city’s Crumpsall neighborhood, the mourners said they felt forgotten by a society that has allowed antisemitism in the UK to grow unchallenged over the last two years.
Politicians and other leaders have failed to reject anti-Jewish speech or protect Jews from hate crimes, they said.
“We are Jews, but we are English. We have lived in Manchester for 150 years. We belong here,” Simon Burton, who works in sales, told The Associated Press. “We feel that, as a community, we are not always listened to. We feel let down.”
“Right now, our hearts are shattered,” UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said Friday. “What transpired yesterday was an awful blow to us, something which actually we were fearing might happen because of the buildup to this action.”
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As evidence of the climate of intolerance that has been allowed to fester in Britain, some people pointed to pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests in London that went ahead Thursday night, even as Jews around the country grieved over the deaths in Manchester.
Police stand guard during a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protest in London, October 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Police in London urged organizers to call off a demonstration planned for Saturday to oppose the government’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, which was labeled a terrorist organization after its members attacked Israeli defense contractors and Royal Air Force aircraft over support for the war in Gaza. Organizers rejected the request, with Palestine Action saying that “canceling peaceful protests lets terror win.”
On Thursday, as people gathered at the synagogue to mark Yom Kippur, the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar, the terrorist drove his car into people outside the building and stabbed one person, Melvin Cravitz, 66, to death.
A second man, Adrian Daulby, 53, appears to have been inadvertently shot dead by police who confronted the assailant, police said Friday, praising Daulby’s heroism in helping barricade the synagogue door before the terrorist. Three other people were seriously injured.
The terrorist, who was shot dead by police, was later identified as Jihad al-Shamie, a 35-year-old naturalized British citizen of Syrian descent.
Jihad al-Shamie,who carried out a deadly terrorist attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, UK, on Yom Kippur, October 2, 2025. (Image circulated on social media)
UK media reported Friday that he was on bail for alleged rape at the time of the attack, and had previous lesser convictions, but was not on police’s anti-terrorism radar.
One eyewitness also told the UK’s ITV News that Shamie shouted “this is what they get for killing our children” as he tried to force his way into the synagogue, in what appeared to be the first statement linking the deadly attack to the war in Gaza.
Shamie’s father Faraj, who condemned the attack, has previously called for Israel’s destruction and praised Hamas for its invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Neighbors of all faiths come to show support
The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the UK has soared since the October 7, 2023, massacre and subsequent war in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust, which works to protect the Jewish community. The group recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the first half of this year, up from 965 in the same period of 2023.
But in Crumpsall, neighbors of all faiths banded together Friday to support one another, focused on their mutual disgust at the violence inflicted on their multicultural community during seven minutes on Thursday morning.
A woman speaks to police as she attends a vigil for the victims of the terrorist attack at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation on Yom Kippur, in Crumpsall, Manchester, October 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)
“There’s no room for this,” said Sham Raja, a local businessman. “The Jewish community, obviously, they are very upset at what’s happened, and there’s no room for the antisemitic. And also as a British Muslim, I fully support the Jewish community and work with them shoulder to shoulder.”
Josh Aronson, a Jewish man who lives near the synagogue, said people of all faiths turned out to show their solidarity.
“Yesterday I had a story that … one of my neighbors who’s Muslim and another neighbor who’s Christian, and myself, we hugged together and it’s like so they can be in this community,” he said.
Young Orthodox Jewish men attend a vigil for the victims of the Yom Kippur terror attack on at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, in Crumpsall, Manchester, England, October 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)
But the air of solidarity was shattered during Friday’s vigil, when UK Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was introduced to the crowd. Lammy, who is also justice minister, was Britain’s foreign secretary until a few weeks ago and is seen as the architect of the government’s decision to criticize the Israeli offensive in Gaza and recognize a Palestinian state.
Lammy was greeted with shouts of “not today” and “shame on you.”
Mark Adlestone, chair of the Jewish Representative Council in Greater Manchester, eventually quieted the crowd, saying, “All right, we’ve heard enough. We know how you feel.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who visited the synagogue Friday, said the attack was designed to “inflict fear” on the Jewish community.
???????? WATCH: Deputy PM David Lammy is heckled while speaking a vigil outside the Manchester synagogue
“You enabled it, every Saturday [Gaza protests in London]”
“Empty words, we want action” pic.twitter.com/1eoZrMC34w
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) October 3, 2025
Jews in Manchester seem determined to carry on. Orthodox Jews hurried to do their shopping ahead of the Sabbath, all but tripping over the journalists seeking their views. Were they afraid? Did they see this coming?
Yes, there was grief for those that were lost. Yes, there was fear of rising antisemitism. But there was also defiance.
“We’re not going to cower away,” Issaac Friedlander said. “We’re not going to hide. … We’re going to carry on with our lives.”
