A rabbi who looked into the face of Jihad al-Shamie as he mounted a deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue has vowed not to allow the “evil” and “hatred” he saw to triumph.
Rabbi Daniel Walker helped others to hold the doors of Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue shut as Shamie “body-charged” them during Thursday’s attack, throwing “heavy plant pots” and “doing everything he could to get in”.
Walker described looking at Shamie, 35, through the window of a door. He told the BBC: “I saw evil, and I saw hate. We will not allow that to beat us.”
Alan Levy, the synagogue’s chair of trustees, said at one point during the attack he heard Shamie shout: “This is what they get for killing our children.”
He told ITV News he had seen Shamie waving a knife outside the synagogue and ran inside to warn others. Levy then rushed to barricade the doors and described seeing the terrorist “with a big knife, banging his way into the glass, trying to get through”.
He added: “The heroes of the congregation who saw what was happening then came to the doors because he was trying to break the doors down to get in.
“We were barricading the doors between us with Rabbi Walker and a number of the other congregants. He couldn’t get in because we were holding the doors firm.”
Walker said Adrian Daulby was among those helping to hold the doors shut. Daulby, 53, died after being accidentally shot by police as they tried to stop Shamie entering the synagogue.
Melvin Cravitz, 66, also died in the attack. Greater Manchester police said he was working at the synagogue as a security guard and “courageously stopped the attacker from entering the building”.
Three others were injured, including one who suffered a gunshot wound, and remain in hospital. Walker said two of those injured had “blocked the terrorist” with their bodies.
Levy praised the efforts of the congregation, as well as the police and passersby who tried to help.
He said: “We need to pay respect to some non-Jewish people who saw what was happening and who stopped to try and help out. They tried to distract this man, to pull him away from the doors because they could see what he was doing.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the local community, Jewish and non-Jewish, who’ve offered help and support to us in this time.”
Walker told Sky News that although the “pain is very raw”, the Jewish community was strong and would recover.
“I still believe in hope, I still believe that we will come together and that we are better than this – and that we’ll be better than this,” he said.
Levy echoed the sentiments: “We’re a strong community. We’re not going to be cowed by these terrorists. We’re going to be strong, we’re going to carry on.”
He said the congregation continued their Yom Kippur service, which had been in progress when the attack started, at the police station while giving statements.
Levy said: “We will be carrying on our services at another venue, and we’re going to carry on. We’re going to be strong, and we’re not going to let this defeat us in any way.”
