Sitting on the benches inside the synagogue, just metres from where last month’s attack in Manchester began to unfold, chairman Alan Levy remembers it like it was yesterday.
Working security on the day, he was the first to sound the alarm – running to barricade the doors as Jihad al Shamie came towards them, trying to get inside.
He points to a seat a few rows behind us – and tells us it belonged to Adrian Daulby, one of the two men who lost their lives that day.
“I came running in here to make sure all the doors were closed – but that door was actually open,” he says, pointing to a fire exit at the back of the main room.
Alan remembers how Adrian Daulby “leapt up” from his seat to close it, and then “ran the length of the synagogue” to help them hold shut the front doors – where he was struck accidentally by a police bullet.
“When I look at that seat now – and Adrian isn’t sitting there – it makes me so sad,” he says. “It’s difficult to say we feel safe, really. It’s still so raw.”
Seven weeks on from the attack, the Heaton Park synagogue has opened its doors for Mitzvah Day, a yearly event focused on helping those in need.
Walking through the front doors, one of the first things you see are rows of sympathy cards lining the shelves inside, filled with handwritten notes of support.
The event’s organiser, Geraldine Simon, shows me two baby grows that were knitted by a local woman who said she had no idea how to support them after the attack – but wanted to try.
“She wrote us a note asking us to give them to someone who needs them, saying ‘tell the mother every stitch was knitted with love’,” Geraldine says.
“That’s an example of the kind of outpouring of support we’ve had. It means everything to us.”
Although the community nearby rallied around them after the attack, both Alan and his son Marc – head of Manchester’s Jewish Representative Council – say that despite promises at the time, they and other members of the synagogue still feel unsafe almost two months on.
“The fact is, we’re sat here now inside a synagogue behind gates with security outside,” Marc says. “And the fact that’s still needed is a real moral failing.
“We really hoped the attack would be a sort of line in the sand – but it became apparent very quickly that probably wasn’t going to be the case.”
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He says that despite more security and an increased presence from Greater Manchester Police – which has now agreed to fund repairs inside the synagogue after officers had to break in on the day of the attack – they feel the threat of antisemitism has not died down.
“We make another plea in the aftermath of our friends and family being targeted – people need to be careful with their language,” Marc says.
Read more:
Attack victims’ cause of death given at inquest
Jamie Al Shamie died of multiple gunshot wounds
‘People shouldn’t be scared to go to synagogue,’ victim says
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He adds: “Questions are being asked among our community about whether our children and grandchildren will still be as welcome in this country as our family have been for generations now.
“And the answer is, unequivocally – no they won’t be.”
