Manchester: The crowd has gone by the time Deborah walks to the police barricade to lay flowers in the rain.
A few boys from the local Jewish school watch quietly as she bends down and props the flowers against the plastic barrier that keeps visitors away from the crime scene at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester.
Deborah is here to remember her cousin, Adrian Daulby, 53, who was one of two people killed a day earlier, when an assailant rammed his car into the synagogue and attacked worshippers with a knife. Police say one of the victims, and an injured survivor, were accidentally shot by police responding to the attack.
“He was lovely,” Deborah says of her cousin. “He was a real gentle soul. He never had a bad word to say about anybody.
“He fought cancer twice in his life, and lost both his parents, and he was going through cancer when his mother passed away. He was just a really helpful, kind person – and just very gentle.”
Deborah, who would rather not give her last name, is the same age as Daulby and part of the Jewish community in Manchester. She wipes away tears as she remembers him.
We are standing on a closed road near the synagogue after most of the television crews have departed. They were here a short time earlier to see Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife, Victoria, pay their respects.
The crowds will be back when a public vigil is held in the afternoon and evening. For now, there are just the police and a few visitors bearing flowers.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits the scene of the terror attack near the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester.Credit: Getty Images
Deborah worries about whether this Jewish community can rebuild from the terror.
“I just pray that people heal and recover, and that this sort of thing never happens again. It’s just awful. I can’t convey it in words how sad and tragic it is,” she says.
“The message that I would like to get out, especially to the Jewish community, is to never let this defeat you, to stand strong together.
“And that’s not just for Manchester. That goes for everywhere else in the UK and across the world as well – just stand united, together, to get through this terrible time. Help each other, be kind to each other.”
Marc Levy, whose father helped to barricade the synagogue door against the attacker, is worried that too many people think the Jewish people do not need their support.
“Sadly, our hand of friendship has not been grasped by many people who should have done,” he says. “So now, people need to look themselves in the mirror and realise that they need to do more to support the Jewish community during this time.”
Floral tributes are left at the scene of the attack.Credit: Getty Images
Does he fear rising antisemitism, as others do? “I don’t know what’s causing all this, but it needs to be dealt with firmly.”
The support is strong among those who stop at this corner, but it may not be so strong in all the streets beyond. The fact is that Manchester did not look like a city in mourning when night fell on the day of the attack. The bars and restaurants around Manchester Piccadilly, in the centre of the city, were loud and lively.
Some Mancunians seemed to greet the attack with a shrug. And there was no way of knowing, from their faces on the street, whether it was a one of resignation or defiance.
Jamie Thomason and Adam Farrell say they are willing to volunteer to protect synagogues and schools.Credit: David Crowe
Jamie Thomason is signing up for defiance. A local man who trains as a boxer, he is gathering volunteers to increase security at Jewish schools and synagogues. “I will jump in and help them kids before myself,” he says. “It’s just a lot of commonsense, what we’re doing.”
Attacks on Jews surged in Britain after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. The Community Security Trust, which tracks antisemitism, says the annual count rose from 1662 to 4296 attacks in the year to the end of 2023.
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“The important point is that it rose before Israel had even responded in any way,” Michael Wegier, the chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, says. He worries that Hamas, a listed terrorist group in Australia and elsewhere, has so many followers chanting its slogans in the west.
“There’s something about the volume of these marches, which take up enormous police resources and expenses, that leave many in the Jewish community feeling very intimidated,” he says.
“We also know there have been many incidents of antisemitism at these marches. Not for everybody, I want to be really clear about that. But among the organisers and some of the people, there have been some really problematic banners and callings.” He thinks police and government prosecutors should have dealt with these more firmly.
Pro-Palestine protest in London.Credit: In Pictures via Getty Images
As an example, Wegier cites the phrase “globalise the intifada” – a catch-cry that seeks a response in the West to the Palestinian uprising against Israel.
“The expression ‘globalise the intifada’ is a global program against the Jews because that’s what the intifada was,” he says. “It was an armed attack on Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists. So when you call for globalising the intifada, that’s what you mean.”
Jewish leaders are urging politicians to make sure there is no tolerance for slogans and protests that encourage people to turn on Jews. Yet, the protests in favour of the Palestinian cause continue in Britain, week by week. It looks as if a generation is not just chanting against Israel, but turning against the Jewish people, over the war in Gaza.
The police tape in Manchester shows where the antisemitism can end. There is a line that should not be crossed – and there are people who are so consumed by hate that they will cross it.
I am at the police cordon at the synagogue just over 24 hours after the terrorism attack. There are about two dozen bunches of flowers along the barriers.
Flowers laid near the scene of the attack outside the synagogue in Manchester on Friday.Credit: AP
Miriam Summer weeps when she lays flowers with her husband and their three children. She is not Jewish but feels she must be here.
“I think the community who aren’t Jewish need to come out, pay their respects and show love,” she tells me. “It’s heartbreaking, seeing people from the community say that they feel scared.
“More people need to come out and show love. It’s 2025. People shouldn’t be getting killed because of their religion. It’s disgusting to see young children scared about the future. We have to do better.”
Summer is speaking through tears. She is distraught at what is happening. But there is something else on her mind.
She thought there would be more flowers.
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