Thursday’s incident came as the community observed Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar
Police said they had shot a man suspected in a stabbing and car-ramming that injured four people at a synagogue Thursday in the northern English city of Manchester on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
Greater Manchester Police said in a series of posts on X that a major incident was declared after a member of the public reported that they had “witnessed a car being driven toward members of the public” and that one “man had been stabbed” near the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall, an area known for its large Jewish community.
Mods removed my comment for saying I don’t have the emotional energy left to care about attacks on pro-genocide groups.
Not that I supported killing them, or that I endorsed this attack, but that it’s hard for me expend emotional energy caring about an in-group actively engaged in a genocide.
I also went out of my way to explain how Israel’s role in conflating Judaism with Zionism is a key reason why I feel that way.
And let me be clear: this attack was wrong and it is 100% counterproductive to bringing an end to the genocide.
I do not support or condone this violence, but I will not be guilted into having a different emotional response just because others find it more acceptable
And while I strongly feel that my own background should have no bearing on the conversation, I will point out that I was raised in a Jewish Zionist household. So please don’t tell me how I’m a self-hating Jew, anti-semitic, or otherwise racially prejudiced against myself.
With all of that out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the target of this attack:
He has previously held a number of rabbinic and educational positions in Israel and the UK.
Rabbi Walker was educated at Manchester Jewish Grammar School and went on to study in yeshivas in the USA and Israel, where he received his ordination in 2003.
As an organisation, we are appalled by the motion passed by Labour delegates on the Middle East conflict. To agree to the text without referencing the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7th October 2023 when 1,200 innocent people were murdered or the fact they continue to hold 48 hostages means they have no credibility to comment on what is an extremely complex issue.
The fact a more moderate motion that did reference these key facts was defeated highlights how many seem unmotivated to work towards a peaceful solution to the conflict. The text is not binding and we will continue holding conversations with key stakeholders within government to advocate against taking divisive and deeply problematic positions.
During our time at Conference we have held a number of meetings with Ministers, MPs and the press focusing on our concerns around the record levels of antisemitic hate crime across society. We also reiterated our strong opposition to the unilateral recognition of Palestine, supported the Government’s position on proscribing Palestine Action, highlighted concerns around antisemitism in cultural spaces including the need to cancel events by those who incite hatred whilst emphasising the importance of holding the Iranian regime to account by enforcing snapback sanctions.
This is an Orthodox Zionist organization helmed by an yeshiva educated conservatives. They are explicitly against Palestinian self-determination and who don’t express an ounce of sympathy or concern for the Palestinians being slaughtered.
For a final time, this attack was wrong. Violence is wrong. This should not be supported, celebrated, or sanctified.
But please don’t censor people who are expressing valid feelings about how they emotionally process attacks against organizations of unashamedly racial supremacists, who are actively part of the in group currently perpetrating a genocide.
This is also relevant discussion to this topic because it speaks to a larger issue facing the Jewish community and public sentiment and opinions that are only getting worse, whether they express themselves through inexcusable violence like today, or by people having tragically apathetic emotional responses to violence.
Sorry you got censored.
In time, we’ll have communities and instances that take moderation seriously and don’t remove posts just because they feel like it.
I can’t speak to the motivations for its removal.
For all I know a bunch of users reported my comment and a mod removed it accidentally because they’re overworked or tired.
I’m not trying to denigrate the work they do, just highlighting a small issue that I personally had.
And to be fair, my original comment was less articulate and more to the point, so perhaps the fault was mine for not providing the proper disclaimers about my positions regarding the rejection of violence. I thought I had, but I can accept that others may have interpreted it in ways that I did not intend.
Interesting.
I wonder if anti-semitism is on the rise and what the Jewish community thinks they should do about it.
We might see more money getting spent in order to convince people that Zionists aren’t getting away with genocide.
The sooner Netanyahu is stopped, the sooner this wave of antisemitism simmers down.
So far we don’t have any information on the attacker’s motive. Right-wing antisemitism is more commonly violent and isn’t going to be impacted by a change of leadership in Israel.
Antisemitism has spiked globally as the Zionists have progressed their genocide.
There’s a clear link.
Which is not necessarily related to this crime. Antisemitism is not a unified ideology where decreasing the prevalence of one form will impact the safety of Jewish people from another.
Currently conflating antisemitism with antizionism is the only defense the Zionist party of Isreal has left to distract from their genicide.
So anyone continuing to push this narrative while trying to ignore the genocide is really suspicious IMO
As an Ashkenazi jew it makes me sick how my people are used as a political tool to protect genocidal fascist religious extremists.
This is devastating. There’ll have been people desperately protecting their children. The best we can hope is the body count is low
Wtf
Removed by mod
I know how awful that is. I feel gross even saying it.
That voice there is a part of you that knows that murdering people solely on the basis of which religion they follow is wrong.
I would urge you to listen more closely to that voice and less to the one that tries to justify minimising the killings on the basis of propaganda.
Notice that they never said anything about the religion, but question the ACTIONS of that synagogue before expending emotional energy.
And they didn’t call for their deaths, they merely said that if they were one of the synagogues who are preaching hate then they won’t care about their suffering, just as those people don’t care about the suffering in gaza right now.
This shit is so common and so infuriating - “They laughed at his death because of his beliefs”
No, you are being disingenuous - “They laughed at his death because of his actions. he called for the death and suffering of many.” is not the same thing at all.
?
You replied to my comment but none of your reply seems to relate to any of it, was it intended to be a reply to another comment, did you just assume what I had written, or did something get very lost in translation?
Notice that they never said anything about the religion, but question the ACTIONS of that synagogue before expending emotional energy.
I didn’t accuse the parent comment of targeting Jews, I referred to the killer as targeting Jews given the attack was on a synagogue on yom Kippur.
And they didn’t call for their deaths, they merely said that if they were one of the synagogues who are preaching hate then they won’t care about their suffering, just as those people don’t care about the suffering in gaza right now.
I never said they did, I specifically used the phrase “minimise” which I believe is appropriate when someone states religiously motivated killing is not worthy of care, arguably they made this conditional on the synagogue not preaching hate, but this feels like an incredibly thin justification, it was not mentioned anywhere in the article, I have not seen any evidence of widespread islamophobia in synagogues (googling variations on the phrase yields nothing). Raising this as far as i can tell only serves as a manufured justification to deny the severity of this act.
This shit is so common and so infuriating - "They laughed at his death because of his beliefs"No, you are being disingenuous - “They laughed at his death because of his actions. he called for the death and suffering of many.” is not the same thing at all.
This is just confusing, the parts within quotation marks bear no resemblance to anything I wrote, even being charitable and assuming “You are being disengenous” is using the rhetorical “you” it still seems a mile off topic, maybe it refers to the discussion around Charlie Kirk?
That voice there is a part of you that knows that murdering people solely on the basis of which religion
This is the part of your comment I was referring to. That user never said anything about their religion. They said something about waiting to have information about their actions.
Conflating those two is easy, and effective at making those who judge others by their actions seem like religious bigots.
I had assumed it would be clear that I was ascribing religious motivation to the killer rather than the commenter. Especially as I clarified this in the thing you are now directly replying to.
Then I definitely misunderstood your intent. My Apologies.
My fury at the use of ‘based on their beliefs’ stands in general, but I apologize for ascribing that to your comment without first asking.
Fair, I can see how it would read in an ambiguous way from someone operating in a different context.
I never said I supported it, I said I don’t care.
I’m more disturbed that you got upvotes.
Do you think this attack will help end the genocide? Or help the flotilla? Or help Palestine Action? It won’t, adventurism doesn’t work.
Synagogue attacks directly benefit Israel. It makes Jews afraid to live outside of Israel and encourages them to become settlers, it’s used by Zionist-aligned governments to crack down on all opposition to Israel, and it creates martyrs when people get killed.
Once again, I never said that I supported violence, or endorsed this attack.
Because yes, I agree that this will result in a counterproductive backlash to my own desire to see the end of the genocide in Gaza.
But because of that genocide, and Israel’s 's full-throated efforts to remove any separation between Zionism and Judaism, I find myself with a lack of emotional energy available to care about the in-group perpetrating that genocide.
That is very different from celebrating this attack.
I didn’t accuse you of celebrating this attack?
My concern is that you don’t have the “emotional energy” to worry about how this is going to make everything worse.
I am very aware of how this will be leveraged to attack the people and groups who are opposed to genocide.
I was very specific about who my apathy was for.
Additionally, after a mod removed my first post, I revise and resubmitted it. This time doing a cursory glance at the the people who run that synagogue.
To the surprise of no one, they’re pro-genocide, anti-Palestinian self-determination, and outspoken Zionist political activists.
And for 26th time, I am anti-violence and do not condone, support, or sanctify this attack. Furthermore, their beliefs do not justify violence, and if one’s goals are to end the genocide, this type of violence makes that harder.
So the fascists made you fascist? That’s certainly something a fascist would say…
No, genocidal religious fascism made me not care about the deaths of their in-group.
The blood god will remember your loyalty on this day
What the fuck…?
Dude, I am not celebrating this violence.
