Manchester, UK
 — 

Chaim Leob lives on a busy corner in Manchester, England, so sirens are not something he would normally find particularly concerning. But Thursday morning was a different story. The police cars just kept coming, one after another. Ambulances and fire trucks were speeding past. A helicopter was hovering overhead.

On any other day, he would turn on the news and check local community groups on social media. But not on Thursday. Thursday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. As an observant orthodox Jew, Leob was not permitted to use technology.

He – and most of his community in Crumpsall and the surrounding areas in northern Manchester – had no idea what was happening. They didn’t know they were under attack.

The emergency services Loeb was hearing were headed to the nearby Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue, where an assailant rammed a car into people before stabbing several members of the community, killing two.

The Manchester police were calling on people to stay inside and avoid the area, but that message was not reaching the community deep in prayer on this holiest of days.

Rivka H., a mother of four who attends the Heaton Park synagogue and lives just minutes away from it, heard the police sirens all morning. She was worried, but like Leob, the legal secretary who asked for her full name not to be published, couldn’t use her phone due to the holy day.

“There was so much police around the synagogue, so many sirens, it made me feel sick. And then I knocked on my neighbor’s door and she told me that two people had died and I was really, really shocked,” Rivka said.

Rivka was speaking to CNN as she was rushing through the neighborhood, trying to get in touch with her two older daughters and ex-husband.

“Hopefully I’ll be able to catch my girls and tell them I’m safe. My brother came to check on me because they know that I go to that synagogue,” she said.

Running into friends and relatives, Rivka was trying to piece together what happened. She heard two people were killed, but didn’t know who they were. A friend told her she heard it was two adult Jewish men.

At one point, a stranger stopped her to ask about a friend who attends the same synagogue as Rivka. The woman, tears running down her cheeks, explained that she hadn’t been able to reach her friend all morning. Rivka had no information to share.

Jews make up a small minority of the UK population, with just under 300,000 people living in England and Wales identifying as Jewish during the most recent census in 2021.

But the community is feeling increasingly targeted, with the number of antisemitic incidents rising over the past decade and reaching new record levels last year, according to Community Security Trust, a charity that monitors incidents and protects British Jews from terrorism and antisemitism.

While the majority of British Jews live in London, Manchester is home to the country’s second largest Jewish community, counting some 30,000 people. Most live in the northern suburbs where the attack happened on Thursday.

Crumpsall is a close-knit community, the kind where a local bakery lets people come in after hours, take whatever they need and trusts them to leave money behind. Where a friend or a relative is never too far and always happy to help.

But while both Rivka and Leob come from families that have been living in the area for most of the past century, both said they are increasingly hearing people talking about moving to Israel because Manchester no longer feels safe.

“I think this just brings it closer to home. People say all the time that our time here is finished, and everyone should go live in Israel,” Leob said.

While he blames the British government for the hostile environment – he said he was particularly angry about its recent decision to recognize the Palestinian state, something he said was a “reward for terrorism” – Leob said he was not thinking about leaving the country.

“I think Israel needs the diaspora as much as the diaspora needs Israel, you know, because if there was no diaspora, there’d be no one to support Israel from the outside. We can’t just all run off to Israel,” he said.

The Heaton Park synagogue sits a bit away from the heart of the Jewish community. While the area just a few streets down the road is almost exclusively orthodox Jewish, the immediate vicinity of the synagogue is mixed, with Jews living next to Muslims and Christians.

A Palestinian flag is proudly displayed in a window on a street where many trees are decorated with yellow ribbons – the symbol of solidarity with the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.

Ashfaq Malik, a British Pakistani who was born in Manchester, lives around the corner from the synagogue. He’s got an orthodox Jewish neighbor on one side and a Muslim family on the other side.

“We never had any problems. We talk to each other, we know each other. My mosque actually put a safety message on the website this morning when it happened, because our Iman is always talking to the Jewish rabbis here,” Malik, who is Muslim, told CNN.

One synagogue, just down the road from the site of the attack, has been employing private security guards to man the locked gates outside. On shift on Thursday was Ans Ahmad, a Muslim man from Manchester. Nobody thought it was unusual. Ahmad told CNN he never felt any animosity from the community.

“Anyone who kills innocent people is a bad guy. Whether it’s a Muslim or anyone,” he told CNN. He said the morning was terrifying for everyone in the area. “I have never seen anything like this,” he said.

Even as nightfall approached, many in the neighborhood still didn’t know about the attack.

Yom Kippur is the one day when even people who are not particularly observant feel compelled to attend synagogue and refrain from using technology. Many have spent the day fasting and praying, with services in the area’s many synagogues held continuously through the day.

Several people in the neighborhood told CNN they didn’t know what happened or had only very limited information. Some asked if the attacker was still at large, relieved when told the police said the suspect was dead.

Rivka was particularly worried about her mother, who is spending the high holidays in Israel and would be worried about her daughter once she learned about the attack.

“Tonight, after the restrictions are lifted, I’ll get on my phone and call her. But it will be later for me, so then there’s a couple of hours where it will be out for my mum in Israel, but not here. What can you do?” she said.