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15 hours ago
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It was just after 6am and Yoni Finlay woke early with nerves. It was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and the 39-year-old Mancunian was due to sing the dawn prayer, Shacharis, before hundreds of worshippers later that morning.
After practising his verse, Finlay buttoned up his white robes and headed to Heaton Park shul in north Manchester. He greeted familiar faces – exchanging a cheery hello with Bernard Agyemang, the security guard – then took a seat on the stage, the bimah, and said prayers.
“And then we heard a bang,” he said. He remembers Alan Levy, the chair of the synagogue’s trustees, running into the synagogue saying “close the doors, close the doors”.
Finlay rushed to the entrance to see what was happening. Through the reinforced glass, he saw Agyemang’s crumpled body on the ground. He turned to see Andrew Franks, a volunteer security guard, covered in blood.
The moment that many in Britain’s Jewish community had feared was finally here. They were under attack.
Finlay, a father of four, helped barricade the doors as the attacker tried to force his way in. “He was pulling them as we were holding them, and they were buckling,” he said.
He saw the attacker’s knife – “I’ve never seen such a large blade on a knife” – and what looked like a bomb strapped to his waist. “He was shouting something to do with killing children.”
In his first newspaper interview, Finlay told the Guardian he saw evil as he looked at the knifeman: “I’ve never felt this before, I’ve never experienced it, but there was evil. We were in the presence of evil.
“It was his whole demeanour. He was angry. Very, very angry. He just wanted to kill Jews, and he was prepared to die for that.”
Finlay did not know but the attacker, Jihad al-Shamie, had already called 999 accepting responsibility for his ongoing assault and pledging allegiance to Islamic State.
Armed police arrived within seven minutes and shot Shamie, a Syria-born Mancunian, as he charged towards them. Somehow he got to his feet and lunged at them again. Police fired more shots, killing the assailant.
Behind the synagogue door, Finlay felt “a very hard punch to his chest” and fell to the ground.
“I knew straight away I’d been shot,” he said. A police bullet had penetrated the left side of his chest and exited through his back. Behind him, Adrian Daulby, 53, was also struck.
Daulby, described by his family as a quiet man and a “tremendously strong hero”, was pronounced dead 40 minutes later. Another worshipper, Melvin Cravitz, 66, died in hospital a short time later from stab wounds.
It was the deadliest antisemitic attack in Britain in recent memory.
Seven weeks on, Finlay is recovering physically from his injuries after a seven-hour operation and two weeks in hospital. But the psychological scars are still raw.
“I’ve got what I’ve been told is survivors guilt,” he said. “Whilst it was a miracle and I’m hugely grateful that I’m still here – I thank God every single day – but it doesn’t take away from the lives that were lost. And that’s very difficult.”
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There was fury in the Jewish community in Manchester and beyond in the days after the attack. The warning signs for an atrocity had been in plain sight for two years, they said. The justice secretary, David Lammy, was heckled and booed at a vigil where ministers were accused of having blood on their hands.
The number of antisemitic incidents recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST) had risen sharply since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel. A decade ago, 100 such incidents a month would be shocking but in the first half of 2025 the CST recorded more than 200 every month. In June, July and August that rose to 300 a month, according to the CST’s head of policy, Dave Rich.
The hostility towards British Jews for the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government – and the failure by UK ministers to address it robustly – had normalised antisemitism in the country, he said.
“People don’t wake up in a morning and think I’m going to kill Jews, I’m going to attack a shul. It doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. It’s the result of what happens in the weeks, months and years leading up to it.
“There’s an undercurrent [of antisemitisim] in the country and people lean into it … It’s not just the government – it’s the way the media have portrayed [the Gaza conflict]. That whole atmosphere allowed something like this to happen.”
The decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa in Birmingham this month over security fears plays into this surrender to antisemitism, he said: “How can it be that British citizens, or citizens of another country, Jewish people, can’t go to a certain area in England? We’re in 2025. How’s that been allowed to happen again?
“It’s become normal to shout antisemitic things, to go on hate marches, and to be abusive towards Jews. Antisemitism has been allowed to fester in this country.
“We can’t keep reacting to things that happen. There has to be real change. We have to stop normalising antisemitism, and the government does play a part in it.”
Speaking at the Guardian’s Manchester office, Finlay stressed that he was not a politician and did not have all the answers. He is just a “very normal guy”, a Manchester United-supporting utility manager who can either be found on a football field or with this four children, a son aged 16 and three daughters aged nine, 12 and 14.
He is very passionate about his volunteer work at the Friendship Circle, a charity supporting Jewish children and adults with learning difficulties and other disabilities.
Finlay said he had not wanted to dwell on the attacker, who was raised barely two miles from his victims. Nor does he blame the armed officer whose bullet struck him and, he believes, Daulby: “They were doing their jobs. Their actions that day saved lives”.
Heaton Park shul received more than 2,000 messages of support and solidarity in the days that followed 2 October. Many were from the non-Jewish community and Muslims, said Finlay, the “silent majority” who abhor discrimination: “They were from every religion, every society. People don’t want violence, they don’t want hate, they want to live in peace together.”
As for the government, Finlay said it would be a mistake to push British Jews behind their already visibly guarded community. “The answer isn’t to keep putting up more walls and gates and we go further and further behind the gates. We’re not tackling the root cause of it,” he said.
Finlay weighed carefully whether to speak publicly since the attack, mindful of the impact on those affected, including his family, and the sensitivities surrounding the Gaza conflict.
He is doing so, he said, because he believes this should be the moment when compassion overcomes hate.
“I saw evil and that’s something that in the moment was very powerful in the wrong way. But let’s combat it. Let’s bring light into the world, and it doesn’t take a lot,” he said.
“Love, care, good. That overcomes hate. That ends hatred. We need to choose to learn and connect instead of dividing. Hope builds bridges, hate builds walls.”
