Israel’s foreign minister has accused the UK Government of failing to curb a ‘toxic wave of antisemitism’ following the ‘awful’ attack on a Manchester synagogue on Thursday.
Gideon Sa’ar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, condemned the ‘murderous attack’ which took place outside the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester and claimed the lives of two Jewish people.
Writing on X, Mr Sa’ar said that ‘blatant and rampant antisemitic and anti-Israeli incitement , as well as calls of support for terror,’ had become ‘widespread’ across the UK, including in university campuses.
He accused British authorities of failing ‘to take the necessary action to curb this toxic wave of antisemitism and have effectively allowed it to persist.’
‘We expect more than words from the Starmer government. We expect and demand a change of course, effective action, and enforcement against the rampant antisemitic and anti-Israeli incitement in Britain,’ he added.
Broadcaster and barrister Robert Rinder, 47, whose grandfather fled to Britain after his family was wiped out in the Holocaust, echoed similar calls for solidarity with the UK’s Jewish community.
In a tweet he criticised those who still allowed anti-Semitism to cloud their view on a horrific attack that left two worshippers stabbed to death on Yom Kippur – the most sacred and solemn day in the Jewish calendar.
‘Some still answer this atrocity with “what about…”’, he said.
In a moving tweet in the aftermath of the attack, he also urged: ‘If you believe in Britain (wherever you’re from & whatever your faith) you must stand with us’.
‘Many Jews cannot imagine a future here and history tells us what follows when that happens,’ he added.
He said: ‘On the holiest day of the year we are attacked at a Manchester synagogue.
‘Our children walk to school behind barbed wire protected by guns. Yet some still answer this atrocity with “what about…”.
‘This is my country, the sanctuary my grandfather found after surviving the Holocaust, promising freedom under the rule of law.
‘Today I pray for the victims, thank the brave who responded and wonder if that promise is fading. A community this small cannot stand alone. Many Jews cannot imagine a future here and history tells us what follows when that happens.
‘Many Jews cannot imagine a future here and history tells us what follows when that happens’.
Former UK Foreign Office Minister Zac Goldsmith also took aim at the rise in antisemitic incidents taking place across the UK.
He shared a video of pro-Palestinian protesters letting off fireworks on a busy street in London, saying: ‘We ALL know what these people want- eradication of the Jewish homeland and its people.
‘But that’s just the start. Their hatred of Jews is (almost) matched by their hatred towards the West as a whole. And yet our govt weakly appeases them, much of the media regurgitates their lies and propaganda, and foolish leftists cheer them.
‘”Globalise the Intifada” – what on earth do they think that means? We had a glimpse today in Manchester. Jews know there will be many more. Non Jews need to wake up as well.’
Conservative Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport Louie French added in a post on X: ‘If the Government really wants to support the Jewish community, it must announce today that the hate marches will be stopped straight away.
‘No more excuses. No more division. The UK must be free from antisemitism and all forms of religious hatred.’
Their comments came hours after a man with a suspected suicide belt killed at least two people outside a Manchester synagogue before being shot by police.
A car was driven into a crowd and a man stabbed at 9.31am on Yom Kippur – the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said four other victims are in a serious condition after the attack outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall.
The force has now confirmed the suspect is also dead, after previously being unable to approach his body due to ‘suspicious items on his person’.
Bomb disposal experts are at the scene, but GMP said a loud noise heard earlier in the day was officers gaining entry to his vehicle as a precaution.
Earlier, hero rabbi Daniel Walker barricaded worshippers inside the building after the suspect crashed into the gate and began stabbing ‘anyone and everyone’.
One witness described him moving from victim to victim in a ‘robotic’ manner ‘like he had a job to do’ – targeting ‘anyone’ wearing a kippah.
He then tried to force his way inside before being shot dead by armed police at 9.38am.
A senior security source, who worked in armed policing for decades, told the Daily Mail that the man’s suicide belt looked real.
Mr Rinder learned just seven years ago how seven of his relatives were slaughtered in Nazi concentration camps in the Second World War while delving into his family history on the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are?
He learned how his great-grandparents and five of their children were killed in the Holocaust, with his grandfather, Morris Malenicky, the only member of the family to survive the war.
Morris’ parents, his four sisters and his brother all died at the Treblinka Camp in Poland in 1940, six months after war broke out.
Morris, who passed away in London in 2001 at the age of 78, was a teenager at the time, and escaped the same fate as the rest of his family after being deemed strong enough to work and put into forced labour at a glass factory in Piotrkow.
He was later sent to the Buchenwald and Schlieben camps in Germany, and finally to Theresienstadt in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, which was liberated by the Russian Army in 1945 three weeks after Morris arrived.
After being brought to the UK by a Jewish charity, Morris met and fell in love with Rob Rinder’s grandmother, Lottie.
As his grandfather’s ‘staggering’ tale was recounted on the show, the emotional TV star said it was ‘impossible to fathom’ how alone Morris would have felt after his entire family was wiped out.
In 1942 Morris registered his family’s deaths in the Holocaust three years earlier, a document Rinder saw for the first time during filming for the show.
The document reads: ‘”Malenicky”. Place of birth: “Piotrkow, Poland”. Circumstances of death: “Four sisters, a brother, parents, Treblinka Camp. Gas chambers, crematorium.”’
During filming Rinder travelled to Morris’s birthplace of Piotrkow, Poland to discover more about his relatives.
He had visited the country with his grandfather while Morris was still alive, but admits he wasn’t ready at the time to learn the truth about what happened to the rest of his family.
On the sixth of September 1939 – five days after the start of World War Two – German troops marched into Piotrkow, and within a month they’d created the first ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe, which housed Morris and his family.
Five months later everyone but Morris was taken to their deaths at Treblinka, among the six million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
In the documentary, an emotional Rinder imagined how Morris must have felt to be the only one left behind.
He said: ‘[It’s] just the most staggering thing that passing on a speeding train – your family gone.
‘And then you go back to your house and you’re alone.
‘I mean. It’s impossible to fathom for my grandfather what that must have been like, to come back to nothing.’
