Memorial for two victims attended by 800, including senior government figures; statement from King Charles read at ceremony: “Hatred can never prevail over our shared humanity”
Photo: Heaton Park Synagogue’s Rabbi Daniel Walker speaks at a memorial service for victims of the 2025 Yom Kippur terror attack, August 31, 2026. Courtesy Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and Region.
More than 800 people gathered Monday, August 31, at Manchester’s Heaton Park Synagogue to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the deadly Yom Kippur terrorist attack.
Two people were killed on October 2, 2025, when British-Syrian citizen Jihad al-Shamie rammed his car into the gates of the synagogue during prayer services on the holiest day of the Jewish year. Al-Shamie stabbed Melvin Cravitz, 66, to death, then tried to storm the synagogue before police shot him dead. Adrian Daulby, 53, died from a single gunshot wound to the chest fired by a police officer responding to the situation.
The attack was one of the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe since the war in the Middle East began with the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Monday’s event was attended by community members, religious leaders and high-ranking civic and political officials, including secretary of state for communities, housing and local government Angela Rayner, minister for faith Flo Eshalomi, Greater Manchester mayor Bev Craig, Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis,and Greater Manchester police chief constable Sir Stephen Watson.
“Being back here today, in this place where so much changed for our community, is incredibly emotional,” said the synagogue’s rabbi, Daniel Walker.
“We have been through something unimaginable,” he told the congregation. “But we are here, together.”
“The attacker came here feeling positive, comfortable in his ways, encouraged and inspired by a tone of deep anti-Semitism within our society,” Walker said, according to the BBC. “We know so well how hateful thoughts can be translated into hate speech which, in turn, is only one step away from hate crime.”
The synagogue also read aloud a written statement from King Charles III, who wrote: “My wife and I hold all those whose lives were so tragically disrupted by that terrible day most closely in our thoughts and prayers. Though the months have passed, the sense of shock and sorrow remains undiminished.”
“The memory of those who lost their lives, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, and of those who were injured, Andrew Franks, Bernard Agyemang and Yoni Finlay, remain especially vivid in my mind,” the king added. “Hatred can never prevail over our shared humanity.”
Anti-Semitic incidents in the UK have risen sharply since the war against Hamas in Gaza began in 2023, with the Community Security Trust, a Jewish community watchdog, saying last month such incidents rose 21 percent in the first six months of 2026 compared to the same period last year, reaching the second-highest total on record for the first half of a year.
The organization recorded 1,926 anti-Jewish hate incidents between January and June, up from 1,598 during the first half of 2025. The total averages 321 monthly incidents, nearly double the figure from before the war began.
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