Yom Kippur
Oct. 5th, 2025 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livContent note: mentions antisemitic murders and police violence. I personally am completely safe, I'm only talking about dealing with news.
It's around midday Yom Kippur. I'm leading the morning service with a tiny community in the southwest corner of England. There's a slight hiatus as this congregation only have two Torah scrolls, so we have to roll through from the first reading in Exodus to the second reading in Leviticus, saving the second scroll for the afternoon reading from Deuteronomy. (In this community, like most of the Progressive world, our second reading is Leviticus 19, not the verses that are sometimes used as clobber texts to support homophobia.) While there's milling about, the volunteers running the tech for Zoom approach me at the bimah and let me know that there has been an attack in a synagogue in Manchester.
First, why did we even know about this, when it's the Sabbath of Sabbaths and people aren't using their phones? Because we're running Zoom from a laptop under Windows, and Windows likes to pop up breaking news tickers. At least it was only the laptop, we didn't have the Zoom participants projected onto a big screen like many shuls do. But the Zoom techs know, and now everyone knows, that an Orthodox synagogue in North Manchester was attacked during their Yom Kippur service and two people were killed.
The next thing is that most people do in fact turn their phones back on to find out more. Not just from morbid curiosity, but to find out if people they know are safe. Almost everybody has Manchester connections, myself included. And also because we suddenly remember we've been told by the CST that for safety, at least someone in each community should be reachable by phone, even though it's the Sabbath of Sabbaths and we shouldn't be using tech. (This advice is given to, and mostly followed by, Orthodox communities as well, where they often take the prohibition very seriously.) Messages of sympathy and checking in if we're ok come pouring in. The CST remind us not to gather near the entrance of the synagogue, but to disperse immediately when we leave, and reassure us that the police are on standby. I don't know whether people get distracted and start scrolling other stuff on their phones, probably they do, but I can hardly blame them, Even if they're very disciplined about only checking their people are safe and not opening any other part of the pocket Skinner box, they're in a very different headspace from when we were fully focused on some combination of praying and daydreaming or internal reflection.
By Musaf, the additional service that follows the morning service, and is considered the deepest point of the holiest day, we know a little more. The name of the synagogue, that there was a car ramming attack and the knife-wielding attacker killed two people. The rabbi and congregation barricaded the doors, following a protocol that we all drill and rehearse regularly, and the attacker was "only" able to harm people who happened to be outside at the time, late comers, people who had gone out for a break and some fresh air, the security volunteers. That the police had arrived within minutes and shot the attacker dead.
I'm a student less than halfway through my training, but I'm the only authority this congregation have. I carry on with Musaf, (we later learn that even the synagogue directly attacked did in fact go back to their service once the immediate emergency had been dealt with) but the timbre is very different from what I had planned. I read the prayer-poem Unetaneh Tokef which contains a section about people who die by violence without completing their natural span. We've just updated to a new prayerbook; the old one presented a lot of Shoah-related material in the context of remembering Jewish martyrs, which has been included in Musaf since Mediaeval times, with descriptions of famous martyrs killed by the Romans as a stand-in for victims of Crusader and other anti-Jewish violence. The new one still has this section, but attempts to shift the focus to ways to sanctify God's name through living holy lives as well as through martyrdom. That really did not go to plan. We're right back into, everybody hates Jews and wants us dead.
Yizkor, the memorial service, is a mess. Partly because I didn't manage to get through it without crying, the first Yizkor when I have to mention my mother. Partly because on top of everything else the community had also just heard the news of the sudden death the previous day of a beloved trans elder, they knew she was sick but didn't know she was terminal, and it was faster than even the pessimistic prognosis she'd been given. I explain that we don't usually include people in Yizkor who haven't yet been buried, but obviously we're thinking about this person, and the two killed in Manchester that morning, though we didn't yet know their names. May God remember our pioneers and community builders. May God remember our martyrs.
All this was Thursday. Since then we know somewhat more details about what actually happened. Though people didn't wait until official statements had been released to speculate about the killer's identity and his motives. Some were sure he was a far right extremist, others a pro-Palestinian activist. The claims that he was a trans antifa marxist nazi immigrant are obvious American culture war nonsense and hopefully nobody in the UK takes that sort of crap seriously. What do we actually know? That he's a British man of Syrian origin, with the first name 'Jihad', that scary religious concept that lots of Islamophobes are already paranoid about. That one of the dead and one of the seriously injured Jewish people were in fact shot by the police; the original killer didn't have a gun. We may never know his views on Palestine though lots of people are perfectly convinced they can guess.
All those people, in my community and elsewhere, who were feeling relieved and reassured that the police showed up so promptly, and grateful that armed police attended many synagogues around the country, when in fact the police are responsible for two shootings, I don't know. I was ready to concede that much as I hate the whole CST security stuff, the constant clamour for increased policing of synagogues and Jewish spaces, maybe in this case they did actually prevent a horrible attack from being even worse. And that could still be true: if the police hadn't been so quick to shoot innocent bystanders, maybe the attacker would have managed to get in to the synagogue building and stab more people. I went to my home synagogue this Shabbat, purely as a congregant, and there were armed police patrolling outside; they didn't make me feel protected and secure, but they did have that effect for other people. Several of my fellow students, like me leading Yom Kippur solo in small communities, didn't hear about the attack from a stupid Windows ticker, but because the police entered their synagogues and informed them what was going on. Some felt reassured when the police showed up, others, particularly those who have been mistreated by racist and bigoted police in the past, felt scared, for most it's probably a mixture of both.
We also now know the name of the rabbi of the congregation attacked; I've met him, he is the one Orthodox rabbi who showed up to lead the funeral of a child whose family situation wasn't completely regular according to Orthodox standards. A funeral I spent some time thinking might be my responsibility. And the partner of one of the student rabbis had kids praying in that area, not at the specific synagogue attacked but within a few streets of it, kids who are themselves observant Orthodox Jews and don't carry or use their phones on Yom Kippur, so they didn't know they were safe until nightfall. And non-Jewish friends who live in the area and have good reason to be very scared and disturbed about the sudden influx of police everywhere. We're one degree of separation away at most. It could have been any one of us. Probably, probably, violent fanatics are more likely to attack visible Orthodox synagogues in heavily Jewish areas than tiny Progressive congregations that meet in some hired hall in a remote town. That's not much to hold on to.
As for the media and political response, what can I say? I'm not at all impressed with the attack being used as an excuse to crack down even further on democratic, peaceful protests. Even Jewish organizations are joining in with the calls to ban the protests about Palestine Action, or even to charge the demonstrators with hate crimes. The Palestine Action protests are not even specifically pro-Palestine though probably most of the participants do care about the suffering of people in Gaza, but the main aim is protesting the very heavy-handed designation of Palestine Action as a "terrorist" organization, authorizing the arrests of anyone who so much as states "I support Palestine Action" or possibly even "I am against genocide in Gaza", since that could be said to be agreeing with Palestine Action's aims. This draconian policing doesn't make Jews safer, it undermines free speech. And there is absolutely no credible evidence that pro-Palestine demonstrations and campaigns had anything to do with the attack on the synagogue on Thursday.
Also some dickhead has firebombed a mosque since then, thankfully there was no loss of life but it's still very upsetting. It could be some kind of twisted "retaliation" for the attack on Thursday, or it could just be random violence. I am also angry with the pro-Palestine activists who are blaming Jews for everything. No, a bunch of English Jews did not deserve to be stabbed during Yom Kippur (or on any other day) because they might possibly be "Zionist" in the sense that they may or may not give money to Israeli charities or may have visited Israel or feel a cultural connection to the country. This is not resistance or intifada or in any way helpful to the people suffering in Gaza and elsewhere in the middle east. It is perfectly reasonable that most UK Jews are upset and scared about this attack that we are quite closely connected to, that doesn't mean we're callous about, let alone responsible for, whatabout the dozens of people killed in Gaza by the Israeli military on the same day. No, it's not the fault of some sinister Jewish conspiracy to prevent people accessing medical care that Manchester hospitals were put on lockdown on Thursday; that was the police response to a violent attack and you can blame the murderer or the police or both but it's nothing to do with "Jewish supremacist Zionists".
I am scared of continued or copycat violence against Jews. I am probably more scared of backlash against Muslims / Arabs / brown people / immigrants in general, especially knowing the attacker had an Arab name. And I am more scared of this incident being used to undermine democracy, protest, free speech and criticism of the establishment, and secondarily of Jews being blamed for that response. I am worried about how the Jewish community in general may react out of the fear engendered by this attack. Also, I am deeply grateful for the kind people who checked in with me personally when they heard the news, and for all the leaders, Muslim, Christian and civic, who sent messages of support to the Jewish community and continue to be in solidarity with us.
It's around midday Yom Kippur. I'm leading the morning service with a tiny community in the southwest corner of England. There's a slight hiatus as this congregation only have two Torah scrolls, so we have to roll through from the first reading in Exodus to the second reading in Leviticus, saving the second scroll for the afternoon reading from Deuteronomy. (In this community, like most of the Progressive world, our second reading is Leviticus 19, not the verses that are sometimes used as clobber texts to support homophobia.) While there's milling about, the volunteers running the tech for Zoom approach me at the bimah and let me know that there has been an attack in a synagogue in Manchester.
First, why did we even know about this, when it's the Sabbath of Sabbaths and people aren't using their phones? Because we're running Zoom from a laptop under Windows, and Windows likes to pop up breaking news tickers. At least it was only the laptop, we didn't have the Zoom participants projected onto a big screen like many shuls do. But the Zoom techs know, and now everyone knows, that an Orthodox synagogue in North Manchester was attacked during their Yom Kippur service and two people were killed.
The next thing is that most people do in fact turn their phones back on to find out more. Not just from morbid curiosity, but to find out if people they know are safe. Almost everybody has Manchester connections, myself included. And also because we suddenly remember we've been told by the CST that for safety, at least someone in each community should be reachable by phone, even though it's the Sabbath of Sabbaths and we shouldn't be using tech. (This advice is given to, and mostly followed by, Orthodox communities as well, where they often take the prohibition very seriously.) Messages of sympathy and checking in if we're ok come pouring in. The CST remind us not to gather near the entrance of the synagogue, but to disperse immediately when we leave, and reassure us that the police are on standby. I don't know whether people get distracted and start scrolling other stuff on their phones, probably they do, but I can hardly blame them, Even if they're very disciplined about only checking their people are safe and not opening any other part of the pocket Skinner box, they're in a very different headspace from when we were fully focused on some combination of praying and daydreaming or internal reflection.
By Musaf, the additional service that follows the morning service, and is considered the deepest point of the holiest day, we know a little more. The name of the synagogue, that there was a car ramming attack and the knife-wielding attacker killed two people. The rabbi and congregation barricaded the doors, following a protocol that we all drill and rehearse regularly, and the attacker was "only" able to harm people who happened to be outside at the time, late comers, people who had gone out for a break and some fresh air, the security volunteers. That the police had arrived within minutes and shot the attacker dead.
I'm a student less than halfway through my training, but I'm the only authority this congregation have. I carry on with Musaf, (we later learn that even the synagogue directly attacked did in fact go back to their service once the immediate emergency had been dealt with) but the timbre is very different from what I had planned. I read the prayer-poem Unetaneh Tokef which contains a section about people who die by violence without completing their natural span. We've just updated to a new prayerbook; the old one presented a lot of Shoah-related material in the context of remembering Jewish martyrs, which has been included in Musaf since Mediaeval times, with descriptions of famous martyrs killed by the Romans as a stand-in for victims of Crusader and other anti-Jewish violence. The new one still has this section, but attempts to shift the focus to ways to sanctify God's name through living holy lives as well as through martyrdom. That really did not go to plan. We're right back into, everybody hates Jews and wants us dead.
Act, we pray,
for the sake of those killed for your holy name.
Yizkor, the memorial service, is a mess. Partly because I didn't manage to get through it without crying, the first Yizkor when I have to mention my mother. Partly because on top of everything else the community had also just heard the news of the sudden death the previous day of a beloved trans elder, they knew she was sick but didn't know she was terminal, and it was faster than even the pessimistic prognosis she'd been given. I explain that we don't usually include people in Yizkor who haven't yet been buried, but obviously we're thinking about this person, and the two killed in Manchester that morning, though we didn't yet know their names. May God remember our pioneers and community builders. May God remember our martyrs.
All this was Thursday. Since then we know somewhat more details about what actually happened. Though people didn't wait until official statements had been released to speculate about the killer's identity and his motives. Some were sure he was a far right extremist, others a pro-Palestinian activist. The claims that he was a trans antifa marxist nazi immigrant are obvious American culture war nonsense and hopefully nobody in the UK takes that sort of crap seriously. What do we actually know? That he's a British man of Syrian origin, with the first name 'Jihad', that scary religious concept that lots of Islamophobes are already paranoid about. That one of the dead and one of the seriously injured Jewish people were in fact shot by the police; the original killer didn't have a gun. We may never know his views on Palestine though lots of people are perfectly convinced they can guess.
All those people, in my community and elsewhere, who were feeling relieved and reassured that the police showed up so promptly, and grateful that armed police attended many synagogues around the country, when in fact the police are responsible for two shootings, I don't know. I was ready to concede that much as I hate the whole CST security stuff, the constant clamour for increased policing of synagogues and Jewish spaces, maybe in this case they did actually prevent a horrible attack from being even worse. And that could still be true: if the police hadn't been so quick to shoot innocent bystanders, maybe the attacker would have managed to get in to the synagogue building and stab more people. I went to my home synagogue this Shabbat, purely as a congregant, and there were armed police patrolling outside; they didn't make me feel protected and secure, but they did have that effect for other people. Several of my fellow students, like me leading Yom Kippur solo in small communities, didn't hear about the attack from a stupid Windows ticker, but because the police entered their synagogues and informed them what was going on. Some felt reassured when the police showed up, others, particularly those who have been mistreated by racist and bigoted police in the past, felt scared, for most it's probably a mixture of both.
We also now know the name of the rabbi of the congregation attacked; I've met him, he is the one Orthodox rabbi who showed up to lead the funeral of a child whose family situation wasn't completely regular according to Orthodox standards. A funeral I spent some time thinking might be my responsibility. And the partner of one of the student rabbis had kids praying in that area, not at the specific synagogue attacked but within a few streets of it, kids who are themselves observant Orthodox Jews and don't carry or use their phones on Yom Kippur, so they didn't know they were safe until nightfall. And non-Jewish friends who live in the area and have good reason to be very scared and disturbed about the sudden influx of police everywhere. We're one degree of separation away at most. It could have been any one of us. Probably, probably, violent fanatics are more likely to attack visible Orthodox synagogues in heavily Jewish areas than tiny Progressive congregations that meet in some hired hall in a remote town. That's not much to hold on to.
As for the media and political response, what can I say? I'm not at all impressed with the attack being used as an excuse to crack down even further on democratic, peaceful protests. Even Jewish organizations are joining in with the calls to ban the protests about Palestine Action, or even to charge the demonstrators with hate crimes. The Palestine Action protests are not even specifically pro-Palestine though probably most of the participants do care about the suffering of people in Gaza, but the main aim is protesting the very heavy-handed designation of Palestine Action as a "terrorist" organization, authorizing the arrests of anyone who so much as states "I support Palestine Action" or possibly even "I am against genocide in Gaza", since that could be said to be agreeing with Palestine Action's aims. This draconian policing doesn't make Jews safer, it undermines free speech. And there is absolutely no credible evidence that pro-Palestine demonstrations and campaigns had anything to do with the attack on the synagogue on Thursday.
Also some dickhead has firebombed a mosque since then, thankfully there was no loss of life but it's still very upsetting. It could be some kind of twisted "retaliation" for the attack on Thursday, or it could just be random violence. I am also angry with the pro-Palestine activists who are blaming Jews for everything. No, a bunch of English Jews did not deserve to be stabbed during Yom Kippur (or on any other day) because they might possibly be "Zionist" in the sense that they may or may not give money to Israeli charities or may have visited Israel or feel a cultural connection to the country. This is not resistance or intifada or in any way helpful to the people suffering in Gaza and elsewhere in the middle east. It is perfectly reasonable that most UK Jews are upset and scared about this attack that we are quite closely connected to, that doesn't mean we're callous about, let alone responsible for, whatabout the dozens of people killed in Gaza by the Israeli military on the same day. No, it's not the fault of some sinister Jewish conspiracy to prevent people accessing medical care that Manchester hospitals were put on lockdown on Thursday; that was the police response to a violent attack and you can blame the murderer or the police or both but it's nothing to do with "Jewish supremacist Zionists".
I am scared of continued or copycat violence against Jews. I am probably more scared of backlash against Muslims / Arabs / brown people / immigrants in general, especially knowing the attacker had an Arab name. And I am more scared of this incident being used to undermine democracy, protest, free speech and criticism of the establishment, and secondarily of Jews being blamed for that response. I am worried about how the Jewish community in general may react out of the fear engendered by this attack. Also, I am deeply grateful for the kind people who checked in with me personally when they heard the news, and for all the leaders, Muslim, Christian and civic, who sent messages of support to the Jewish community and continue to be in solidarity with us.
(no subject)
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Date: 2025-10-05 05:39 pm (UTC)I hadn't heard yet that police violence killed and injured people besides the attacker. :-( I wish we could collectively turn this timeline around and start moving in a direction of treating each other better rather than further eroding all our rights and increasing inequality and harm.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-09 12:08 pm (UTC)The police openly admitted to shooting two additional people. I naturally don't believe police statements but I think it's fairly plausible in this case that shooting bystanders was unintentional (there's no likely motivation why they would shoot them and then cover it up). But yeah, it's not being talked about much, because it doesn't suit the narrative.
I really do share your wish to move towards everybody treating each other better.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-09 03:57 pm (UTC)Grim subject, but I'm fairly confident (in that it's consistent with the reporting) that what happened is that rounds fired by the police at the attacker outside penetrated the synagogue door and hit people inside who were holding the door shut, but who they couldn't see. Possibly after also penetrating the attacker.
Which brings up a bunch of points, but mostly around long-term planning and training, rather than the actual execution by the police on the ground. The individual firearms officers are still open to criticism, because they're supposed to consider over-penetration risks, but that might be out-weighed by 'does he have a bomb?'.
It used to be that pretty much all UK armed police used the HK MP5SF carbine, which fired 9mm rounds that tended not to over-penetrate. But over the past 20 years the proliferation of body-armour means pretty much all forces have switched to using 5.56mm carbines. 5.56mm rounds are smaller and faster than 9mm, so more likely to penetrate body-armour, but also more likely to penetrate things like doors while retaining lethal force. Training should have addressed that, but did it do it adequately?
How to safely barricade a door might be something CST needs to discuss with the police/Home Office, but I don't think there's any simple answers, anything that minimises the chance of being hit, such as staying low, also reduces your leverage to keep the door closed.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-05 06:42 pm (UTC)I am so sorry this happened, and I’m glad you’re safe. Thank you for writing this, both for the bare facts but also for your thoughtful response.
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Date: 2025-10-05 08:33 pm (UTC)I can't say a lot on this topic because I am a civil servant working in this area but I do agree the whole atmosphere is really worrying.
Everyone I know who is Jewish or from another minority group is to a greater or lesser extent anxious about their personal safety. I am too. I don't think it's ever felt quite this way in my lifetime in the UK.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-09 12:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-05 08:54 pm (UTC)I read this while part of a counter-protest against some fash who are trying to make trouble every goddam weekend at a local hotel that houses asylum seekers. I was worried it'd be worse than usual this week but it was not. I'm glad our side included Jewish people and signs and music.
Thank you for sharing this.
Thinking of you.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-09 12:30 pm (UTC)And I very much value how much you're connected in your local community.
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Date: 2025-10-06 04:45 pm (UTC)Thinking of you. This is so horrible.
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