ECAJ statement on the terrorist attack in Manchester.

The ECAJ has condemned in the strongest terms the heinous terrorist attack that targeted Jewish wor­ship­pers at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester as they gathered to com­mem­or­ate Yom Kippur, the holiest and most solemn day in the Jewish calendar.

ECAJ President Daniel Aghion described the attack as “an outrage”:

This was not only an attack on the Jewish community of one synagogue. It was an attack on religious freedom. Whatever sick reason might have motivated the per­pet­rat­or to murder two people at random and seriously injure four others, it points to a collapse of basic moral values. No religious, political or ideo­lo­gic­al motiv­a­tion can adequately explain, let alone justify, such an act of cal­cu­lated barbarity.

Our hearts go out to the families of those who were murdered and to the injured, and to the whole Jewish community in the UK who have yet again been trau­mat­ized. The Aus­trali­an Jewish community stands with them in solid­ar­ity and we offer them our complete support.

Yom Kippur is a day of fasting and prayer, of searching one’s soul and examining one’s personal life to acknow­ledge failures and short­com­ings and resolve to do better. Perhaps there is a message there for others as well.

Although not directly linked to this par­tic­u­lar attack, the harsh and untruth­ful critical rhetoric we have seen from anti-Israel mobs time and again on our streets and in our media has been seized on to enliven and exploit antisemitic pre­ju­dices more broadly, and on occasions to plan and carry out crimes of the kind that we have just seen occurring in Manchester. They need to reflect on their actions and their words.