On Wednesday evening, the start of the 25 hours of fasting and prayer to mark the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, my son Gabriel was on the rota of volunteers protecting my thriving local synagogue at Richmond-upon-Thames.
Wearing a protective ‘stab vest’, with a yellow hi-viz jacket and a walkie-talkie, it was his job to guard the glass-doored entrance.
Fortunately, his 45 minutes on duty passed without incident, but when I heard for the first time about the horrifying events that had taken place in Manchester on Thursday morning, I couldn’t help reflecting on the vulnerability of my son and his brave colleagues on the synagogue’s security rota.
And my thoughts immediately went out to the families of the volunteers doing the same job as Gabriel at the Heaton Park synagogue.
Kol Nidrei – the eve of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) – is the only day of the Jewish year when synagogues are filled to the rafters.
In our community, first word of the terrifying attack in Manchester filtered through from the supervisor of our security rota, who happens to be one of the world’s foremost experts on airport security, in the early afternoon.
He had received a message from the Community Security Trust (CST), a Jewish charity which works closely with the police and security services.
The rabbi and his honorary officers decided to carry on with services normally, with special prayers, including Psalm 121, which includes the line, ‘I lift up my eyes to the mountains’, being recited in honour of the victims and wounded. By the end of services, at 7.25pm, special arrangements were in place for us to exit the synagogue safely. People left in small groups, and Metropolitan Police officers were standing by the front gate and on the cul-de-sac leading to the main road.
Members of the local Jewish community stand in the street outside Heaton Park synagogue following the terrorist attack
Police block off White House Avenue near the scene of the stabbings in Manchester
Until Thursday, the worst thing that had happened in our civilised suburban London enclave since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, was the daubing of a swastika on an external wall. It was a worrying incident but quickly dealt with with the help of neighbouring non-Jewish friends.
But following Thursday’s outrage there is an acute realisation that our security volunteers are not just there for show, but represent the last line of defence against the anti-Semites.
Inside my Richmond Shul, Philip Spencer, emeritus professor of holocaust studies and genocide at Kingston University, led a question-and-answer session on genocide.
An esteemed member of our community, Spencer reflected that most members of generations brought up after the Holocaust believed the memory of the industrialised killing of six million Jews served as a kind of protection against anti-Semitism. It was such an appalling act of barbarism that it couldn’t happen again.
But when more than 1,000 Israelis (some British) died in the unspeakable October 7 assault in which many victims were disembowelled, dismembered, or raped, some sections of the broadcast media – along with Left-leaning newspapers, UN human rights organisations and a number of politicians – responded by accusing Israeli forces rather than Hamas of perpetrating atrocities.
In fact, the members of the Israel Defence Forces are soldiers at war and, if there have been excesses, it is not a question of genocide but a matter for discussion by experts on infringements of the rules of war.
Yet in the heart of London, Manchester, Leeds, Brighton and other cities with sizeable Jewish populations, anti-Semitism – the world’s oldest hatred – is alive and well. It has been fomented by jihadist groups but supported by ordinary British citizens. Neighbours, friends and women who were once at school with my wife have bought into a pernicious narrative.
For me, the first-generation scion of a family abused, gassed and incinerated in the ovens of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the reappearance of Jew hatred could not be more disturbing and upsetting. Growing up in Brighton, I encountered occasional anti-Semitism. There was the pig-ignorant art master, for example, who shouted: ‘Jewish boys can’t paint.’ If only I had known then of Chagall, Pissarro, Kandinsky and all the other Jewish masters.
But prejudice against Jews was no more threatening than that faced by Roman Catholics schoolkids. How different it is today. The central London pro-Palestinian marches on the Jewish Sabbath, deliberately passing the doors of synagogues, could have been taking place in 1920s or 1930s Germany.
As a member of the Western Marble Arch Synagogue adjacent to Hyde Park, where earlier this year a Brummer family celebration took place, I was horrified to hear about the struggles of the community’s brilliant rabbi, Daniel Epstein.
He described over a Sunday morning breakfast how he had had to engage a leading firm of lawyers to persuade the Metropolitan Police and local authorities to divert a march away from the synagogue doors. If anti-Israel sentiment is not anti-Semitism, why on earth should such hostile processions be routed past places where Jews are at prayer?
On returning from the synagogue on Thursday evening, I switched on the BBC and Sky News channels. None of the broadcasters made any connection between events in Manchester and the national dialogue on Gaza and the Palestinians.
The cruel truth, as drawn to my attention by a non-Jewish colleague in an email, is that Keir Starmer and David Lammy, in his previous role as Foreign Secretary, had legitimised terror attacks when they recognised the state of Palestine. In effect, they were declaring that Hamas terrorism, despite the ordeal of 42 remaining hostages (many already dead), was acceptable.
This, even though Hamas advocates wiping out Israel – home to six million or so Jews and two million Palestinian Israelis. My dear late father Michael, a courageous refugee from the Holocaust, was a patriot whose belief in the tolerance of the British people was unshakeable.
I thank the Lord that he is not around to witness how that belief has been fatally eroded today.
