His Name was Jihad

His name was Jihad Al-Shamie. He was 35 years old and a British citizen of Syrian descent who entered the U.K. as a very young child, and was granted British citizenship in 2006 as a minor. U.K.’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, told the BBC, after the most recent Yom Kippur attack on Jews in Manchester, U.K. October 2, 2025, “what transpired yesterday was an awful blow to us, something which we actually were fearing might happen because of the buildup to this action.”

“Our responsibility is to make sure our Jewish community, our citizens, can go about their lives with safety and security,” U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the BBC. “I do not want Jewish people in our country to feel like they have to live a smaller Jewish life, that they cannot go about their business and practice their faith and go to their communal institutions in freedom.” Now we add Manchester, U.K., 2025, to the list of times Jews are intended to be terrorized and Yom Kippur desecrated on a day of communal prayer, which makes us Jews vulnerable and a concentrated target.

Antisemitic hate crimes in Manchester, U.K., reached a peak in October 2023 and remained high in early 2024. The British Community Security Trust, a British charity that tracks antisemitism, has reported 1521 antisemitic attacks between January and June of this year in the U.K., which include physical, assaults, property damage, graffiti, online abuse, and three cases of what it called “extreme violence.“ It said that it was the second highest number of anti-Jewish incidents the group had ever recorded in the country. The trust warned Jews in the U.K. not to congregate outside communal premises, and urged synagogues to keep their doors closed at all times.

His name was Jihad, the attacker. The Manchester synagogue had reinforced doors and a security guard which prevented a greater tragedy. Yom Kippur, which means “Day of Atonement,” is the holiest day in Judaism, when we are closest to God and to the essence of our souls. The timing of these attacks is particularly devastating, as it is a Jewish day of fasting and gathering in prayer services in synagogue. It is also a day that those who hate Jews use to target Jewish people.

The Manchester attack on a high holy day comes only days before the second anniversary of October 7, 2023, Hamas’s attack in Israel, killing of 1200 Jews, and taking hostages of others, torture and terror, sexual violence, assaults, occurring 50 years after the Yom Kippur war and 80 years after the Holocausts and the murder of 6 million, an open wound to the Jews. Never again was again.

We remember the 1973 Yom Kippur War when a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur. In the summer of 1972, Palestinian and terrorist murdered 11 Israeli Olympic team members in Munich, an attack cited by some as a prelude to the Yom Kippur War.

In 2019, an antisemitic attacker, a German neo-Nazi, attempted to force his way into a synagogue in Halle, Germany, where the synagogues reinforce security door prevented the gunman from entering. In 2000 there was a Bronx synagogue fire bombing on the eve of Yom Kippur. In 1997 Vandals drew swasikas and antisemitic graffiti on a synagogue in Jerusalem on Yom Kippur. This doesn’t include the pogroms, massacres, and expulsions against the Jews throughout the history of mankind.

Then, recently in the U.S., the attack in Boulder in June on a rally for hostages held by Hamas and two months later the fatal shooting of two staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. This week, German authorities, arrested three men, all apparently of Muslim background, two Germans and Lebanese, on charges of membership in Hamas and planning a terrorist attack against Israel or Jewish institutions in Germany.

In Europe, attacks, assaults, and harassment against Jews are becoming even more frequent, including in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Britain It is now the year 5786 and the memory of such attacks and planned attacks contributes to a collective historical awareness of the deep-seated threat of antisemitism to the Jewish communities around the world.

As a child of Holocaust survivors, I attend Yom Kippur services via Zoom from the safety of my home which were to start at 10 am October 2, 2025, Yom Kippur morning. Shortly before, a newsflash reported a car driving toward members of the public and a man stabbed at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congress Congregation Synagogue in Manchester, England.

With BBC News on one device and Yom Kippur services on another, heart palpitations occurred, and fear and grief permeated my life again. The Yom Kippur sermon seemed to say that we Jews should face that we are again in a period of being unsafe, and each of us should look to make the world safe for Jews in the next generations.

His name was Jihad.

Jihad means a struggle or a fight against the enemies of Islam , which can sometimes involve armed conflict under specific ethical conditions, and for the protection of the Islamic community. He was given that name 35 years ago at birth and now 35 years later, runs Jews over with his car and takes a knife to Jews on Yom Kippur in Manchester on October 2, 2025.

Prime minister Kier Starmer vows to protect U.K. Jewish communities after the attack. He is raising Jewish children with wife, Victoria Starmer, who is Jewish.

Where was he yesterday?

What are the “promises“ for tomorrow that can change what is?

5786 years and we Jews are still here and follow our religion, rituals, and traditions. I haven little confidence in our Jewish individual safety and live accordingly. I already live a smaller Jewish life, that I cannot go about my business and practice my faith and go to my communal institutions in freedom in America. I experience grief and fear since the terror of October 7, 2023 and the rise in antisemitism October 8, 2023.

Now at 5786 years, we Jews are as always vigilant, watching the signs, and knowing when to quickly pack a bag.* That, and now we have a strong Israel, which is what I believe in for the safety of the future generations of Jews.

Nothing else.

With little joy,

Mema

*This rise in antisemitism has prompted more British Jews to consider leaving the country.

• Polling from late 2023 indicated that nearly half of British Jews were considering emigrating due to increased antisemitism.

• According to the Jewish Agency, 250 Jews from the UK made aliyah (“Aliyah is the Hebrew word used to describe immigration to Israel—bringing Jews from the “four corners of the earth” to their biblical homeland is the very backbone of the Jewish state. It’s the return of Jews to the land of Israel from the diaspora (Jewish communities outside of Israel)”) the first five months of 2025.

• This is part of a trend of increasing aliyah from Britain, with 660 people immigrating to Israel in 2024—a significant rise from the 404 who did so in 2023.