Reflections from Manchester (Part I)

I had been invited to lead the services for Manchester Reform's High Holy Days this year, which means I was three miles down the road, preparing to lead the whole of Yom Kippur, when we were told that services were cancelled and we had to leave the site as, at that moment in the moming, just 20 minutes after the attack in Heaton Park, there were fears that there could be more.

So I left. I drove home as instructed by our security team. And I felt terrible because I was in a position of leadership, spiritual leadership, the only one for that community, and on the holiest of days, at a time when surely the rabbi should be holding them together, I was driving away, leaving Manchester, heading home to Leeds.

My head was focussed on safely driving, but my heart was broken as I asked my mum (who had come up from London to support me) to refresh the BBC News app to find out what we could about what happened. We saw emergency vehicle after emergency vehicle, even on the M62 (the motorway that cuts East-West across the north, linking Manchester and Leeds). It took a while for it to appear on the website, and for the magnitude of what had happened to sink in.

But as we got closer to Leeds, I had more clarity as to what I needed to do. I asked my mum to call the Chair of the synagogue. A Zoom had already been set up, to stream the service. So I told the Chair that I would be home in twenty minutes, and could he open up the Zoom and get the word out that we'd be having our Yom Kippur services, starting at 12noon.

As we arrived home, I went upstairs to my office, set up the iPad, got out my machzor (prayerbook) and logged in. I knew what I needed to do, and I have never been more grateful for our liturgy. It was Yom Kippur and we were not going to let a terrorist attack stop us from doing what we do on Yom Kippur.

The Zoom room opened, people began logging in, and we spent the next seven hours together, crying, praying, reflecting, chanting Torah, checking in.

All I needed to do was to keep turning the pages, and what was in front of me was a source of strength, comfort, resilience and defiance.

It was a moment of profound Jewish pride and strength that, despite all the odds, we were able to journey together through Yom Kippur in the most meaningful and powerful way.

This symbol appeared soon after the fast ended on Yom Kippur; the black and white logo of the magen david, with the symbol of the Manchester bee inside, honouring the two Jews, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, may their memories be for a blessing, murdered that day at Heaton Park Synagogue.