Rabbi Benjamin Rickman, a Mizrachi movement emissary and community Rabbi in Manchester, described the painful feelings in the Jewish community in Manchester after and even before the attack in which two worshippers were murdered on Yom Kippur, in an interview with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News.
He says, "We are experiencing antisemitism in an abnormal way. There is fear of walking the streets, people are scared, they endure shouts and curses. It is terribly sad that people live like this. We continue in any case, but some people go out less, people take off their kippah and Stars of David so that they will not be identified as Jews. On the other hand there are those who walk around with an Israeli flag and come to synagogues on Shabbat even though they would not usually come, to show that the Jewish people are still here. It is complicated."
He noted the difficulty of accepting the norm of synagogues being secured, "It bothers me that we need guards outside the synagogues. I entered my synagogue on Shabbat and there was a patrol vehicle outside the synagogue for 12 hours. The police were kind. They came to hear from us what is happening in the synagogue and the community. Everyone left the prayers and said thank you very much. They said that the Jews are the politest in England, but it is still not right. There are extremist movements in England and the government and politicians do not know how to deal with them because they are also afraid of them, because they are becoming a majority in England."
Rabbi Rickman relates to the helplessness of British politicians from his personal experience, "A nice politician in my area needs the votes of those who oppose the Jews and the State of Israel to keep his seat in Parliament. They play the game. I received many emails of sorrow and pain, but beyond that they did not say that this is wrong and that the extreme voices must be silenced and antisemitism stopped. I asked them why no one is saying that what we experience is not right. I receive no answer on that. They focus on the murder but not the problem."
"They do not talk about the fact that there is a religion here that sanctifies death and not life, which must be silenced. They honor and encourage murder, like the Nazis. More people need to speak up and say that they do not accept people living with a worldview that honors murder and death."
Asked what is happening to make Britain deteriorate like this, he says, "It is hard to explain. It characterizes England that the silent majority does not speak out here, they are the polite ones and they are our friends. The minority is loud and has a big mouth. For them, this is not just politics but a religious value to take to the extreme, and because this is higher on their value scale the noise they make is stronger than the silence of others."
Rabbi Rickman believes it is still only a minority. "I went shopping on Friday and the woman at the supermarket wanted to hug me. I told her not to, please... but she wanted to hug me and said she was sorry and they are with us, etc. The minority makes a lot of noise. It is a minority that is both loud and violent and it stresses the British who do not want to be shouted at and cursed."
In this reality, Rabbi Rickman says, talk about immigrating to Israel is increasing. At his own home, his eldest daughter immigrated to Israel, his younger son will come in a year to study in Israel and the same will be true for his younger brother, "It is like during the Holocaust with the Kindertransport. That is how I see sending the children to Israel, and later we will also come."
He also tells of his daughter moving to Israel, who told him about two hundred families planning to immigrate to Israel. "If the government does not understand the other side's perspective and does not want to confront it, then there is no choice but to move."
Rabbi Rickman notes that the harsh reality in Britain began even before the October 7th massacre. "There have always been problems in Europe. This is not new. Not something of the last two years," he says and notes that as a teacher for twenty years at a school he is angered by the reality in which the only schools that are secured and surrounded by fences are Jewish schools. "This is how people live here every day. Since the massacre the pro-Palestinian demonstrations have also been violent and loud."
Rabbi Rickman hopes Jews are not acclimating to antisemitism. "My body is stuck here but my heart is in Israel. There are British Jews whose whole lives and roots are here and they see their future here, but young families think and plan to move to Israel because they do not see a future here."