Statement on the Manchester Synagogue Attack and its Aftermath
06 October 2025 - SACC
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SACC condemns the horrific attack on Heaton Park Hebrew Synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur. As an attack on a place of worship on a holy day it was an act of anti-semitism.
Acts of racial and religious hatred, from verbal abuse through to murder, always have an impact far beyond their immediate victims. They reinforce existing social structures of hate and prejudice and they create fear and division. We stand with the Jewish community as we stand with all communities that are subject to racial and religious hatred.
We note with grave concern that one of the two innocent people who died as result of the incident was accidentally killed by police gunfire, and that another innocent person was injured by police gunfire. This highlights the dangers involved in the police use of firearms at non-firearms incidents.
Beyond recognising that the attack was plainly anti-semitic, we will not speculate on its motives and we will not speculate on whether it was an act of terrorism. Meaningful use of that term requires that the attacker or attackers had a more specific purpose than hate. We do not think the terrorism label should be used simply as a way of expressing outrage.
It is widely suggested that conflation of Jewishness with support for Israel was a factor in the attack. We think that supposition, while plausible, is premature. But we think that conflation of Jewishness with support for Israel is any case incorrect and dangerous. Zionism is a secular, racist political ideology and is quite distinct from the religion of Judaism.
The organisations that we work with – some of them Jewish - in support of the Palestinian people all reject the conflation of Jewishness with support for Israel. We are not aware of any pro-Palestinian organisation that takes a different view. On the other hand, the Israeli Government and the Israel lobby actively promote conflation. Regrettably, so do some Jewish community organisations, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and so do some synagogues.
We insist that everyone has a right to practise their religion without fear, regardless of the political positions of their religious institutions.
We deplore calls made by police and others for demonstrations against the Gaza genocide to be cancelled in the aftermath of the synagogue attack. Protesting against genocide – racist mass murder – cannot possibly be incompatible with grieving over other racist murders.
The calls by police reinforce the toxic conflation of Jewishness with support for Israel and trivialise the catastrophe that is engulfing Palestine. People in the UK experience the death of family and friends in Gaza every day. If their feelings were respected, there would never be a day when events supportive of Israel could be held, and never a day when politicians complicit in the genocide could speak publicly.
Political protests are in any case about something bigger than feelings. The synagogue attack came at around the same time as Israel’s illegal abduction on the high seas of humanitarians trying to bring aid to Gaza. Their safety depended on visible public support. It also coincided with fast-moving events around Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza. Any hope of injecting Palestinian voices into that process depended on timely action on the streets of countries like the UK whose governments are trying to shape the fate of Palestinians.
We condemn Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s grossly irresponsible characterisation of pro-Palestine protests in these circumstances as “un-British.” It appears to be an attempt to incite the far-right against our protests.
We reject the alarmist language of those who claim that there is a “tidal wave” of anti-semitism in the UK. These claims rely on the false imputation of anti-semitism to pro-Palestine protests and anti-Zionist speech and activity. They make it difficult to assess the actual level of anti-semitism in the UK.
At the same time, we warn strongly against complacency over the threat of anti-semitism. Anti-semitism remains a core part of far-right ideology despite the current focus of many far-right organisations on Islamophobia and their support for Israel as a supposed front line of western civilisation.
Whether or not the conflation of anti-semitism with anti-zionism by the Israel lobby played a part in the Manchester attack, it is certainly one of the pathways along which anti-semitism can grow. The rapid growth and evolution of the far-right in “western” countries makes this a particular danger. Whatever fuel fascism uses to launch itself, it threatens us all.
We will continue to campaign against all forms of racism, including anti-semitism and the genocide and colonial dispossession of the Palestinian people.
This SACC statement is endorsed by Muslim Women's Association of Edinburgh (MWAE) and Midlothian Trades Union Council.
Photo: Vigil in Manchester on 3 October 2025 for the Heaton Synagogue attack. © Peter Byrne / Alamy
