‘We’ve been waiting for this’: Rabbi speaks of antisemitism fears after Manchester attack

'We've been waiting for this': Rabbi speaks of antisemitism fears after Manchester attackCredit: The Independent

Transcript

00:00So I was in the synagogue yesterday, which is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar,

00:05and we were just sitting down there and there was a bit of a hustle, people were talking

00:08about it, something's going on, and then someone who's, we have that tzala, which is the local

00:14first aid, Jewish first aid people, they kind of rushed to the rabbi of the shul and they

00:18told all the rabbis of the shul, just be aware, there's been an attack on one of the synagogues.

00:24So then I was like, okay, that's kind of how I found out.

00:31Well my first reaction was like, oh wow, we've been waiting for this, this is kind of something

00:34that's been expected, you know, like we've seen what's going on around the world, we've

00:38seen the anti-Semitism, it's kind of like, we're like hoping, we hope it doesn't happen

00:43in Manchester, like hope, you know, there's been like talk about it's going to happen here,

00:46it'll happen there, things can happen, and we're just hoping it doesn't happen there,

00:49and the fact that happened just down the road, from where we live, is, yeah, it's pretty

00:55scary.

00:56I was actually lying in bed last night, my son came into my bed last night and I was lying

01:00and I was looking at him and thinking like, the fact that just down the road from where

01:04we live, Jews were murdered just for being Jewish, like minutes, like where we go ride

01:10our bike down there, that's madness.

01:13I don't think, I don't think there's, it makes us think kind of how long the Jews have

01:18actually left to live in the UK, it's just getting, it seems to be getting worse and worse,

01:24yeah, but we do stand strong, you know, we do, we do, we do stand strong and we will go

01:30on and for thousands of years the Jews have been persecuted, it's just kept on going on

01:34and on and on and they've not got the message that we will still live on and we will still

01:38conquer, we'll still, we'll still, we'll still stay strong and we will persevere and we will

01:42keep our strength, keep our faith.