Our thoughts and prayers are with the UK Jewish community as we share in their grief over those killed and injured at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
We are grieving but not at all shocked. What happened on Yom Kippur in Manchester is the anticipated result of the normalization of antisemitism and the demonization of Israel by the UK and other Western governments tolerating and granting legitimacy – and even unconditional statehood – to those who celebrate the deliberate and targeted murders of innocents, whether they live in their own countries or “between the river and the sea.” We join in the prayer of Chief Rabbi Mirvis, “that this tragedy strengthens our collective resolve to confront antisemitism, in all its guises, once and for all.”