In a shock to absolutely no one, a synagogue was attacked on Yom Kippur. Two Jewish men were murdered and others were injured at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, England. We mourn them. We stand with the bereaved families, the wounded and a community that is forced to reckon with a brutal truth: Antisemitic violence does not stay in history books. It finds its way into our houses of worship, our streets, our lives.
And yet, in 2025, the government in the United Kingdom is led by elected officials who openly support a “Free Palestine” and enable the very terrorists whose ideology inspires this violence. At the same time, the United Kingdom’s left-wing Jewish establishment, including the woke Board of Deputies of British Jews, remains complicit in its silence and misdirection.
For decades, the Board of Deputies has been regarded as the central institution representing British Jewry: A liaison to government, a media voice, a guardian of communal interests. But today, this same board routinely condemns the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, preaches about Islamophobia, insists on the failed two-state solution, and condemns and attacks Tommy Robinson, one of the few non-Jewish public figures in Britain who has proven himself a consistent friend of Israel and Zionism.
Recently, many of the board’s deputies even criticized Israel’s military operations in Gaza, warning that “Israel’s soul is being ripped out,” condemning ceasefire violations and expressing concern over the “erosion of democracy.” They wring their hands over Israel’s conduct in a war for survival, they support a two-state solution and now face violence from jihadis with no answers. On domestic issues, the board continues to push a left-wing, pro-migration agenda hostile to conservative values.
And now, as we saw in Manchester, its Muslim allies have attacked a shul. Robinson, a valiant patriot and proud Zionist, is banned from Jewish communal events by these liberals. Much like the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, the Board of Deputies has become an institution hostile to the Jewish state and to conservatives who dare defend it.
To understand the seriousness of this moment, it helps to listen to a voice from our own modern history: Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the revisionist Zionist leader, author, soldier and founder of the Jewish Defense Organization. His words are not gentle. They are not diplomatic. They are meant to wake Diaspora Jews up.
“We were not created in order to teach morals and manners to our enemies. Let them learn these things for themselves. We want to hit back at anybody who harms us. Whoever does not repay a blow by a blow is also incapable of repaying a good deed in kind,” Jabotinsky wrote. He also said, “The Latin proverb says, ‘Of two evils, choose the lesser.’ When we are in a position where, through no fault of our own, physical force dominates, only one question can be asked: What is worse? To continue watching Jews being killed and the conviction grows that our lives are cheap, and among the whole world that we are spineless? … [T]he blackest of all characteristics is the tradition of the cheapness of Jewish blood, on the shedding of which there is no prohibition and for which you do not pay.”
“The Jew is everywhere in reach. He can be pointed out at any street corner, and he can be insulted or assaulted with only the minimum of risk, or with none at all,” Jabotinsky said. “One permanent assignment that is entrusted to each of us, old and young, men and women, educated and ignorant, as a group and as individuals … is the defense of our people’s honor.”
“It is always aimed at us, and we must respond. We must end this abuse of ourselves at all costs. And it is very easy. They spit in our faces without fear, ‘in passing,’ for no reason, not because our insulters are blessed with courage and want to pick a fight with us, but because this pleasure is so cheap for them: They will spit at us and go on their way, and nothing will happen,” he said. “We must accustom them to the thought that, from now on, this pleasure will come at a hefty cost. A new commandment must enter our hearts, that even where there is only one Jew, the word Zhid must not be heard without response.
“Wise people will come and try to dissuade us, but it is not our purpose to win in every single incident. Our objective, to create about us the belief that a slur on our national feelings is no longer what it once was, a small diversion free of cost, but will rather, with an absolute certainty and a mathematical precision, result in a sharp and unpleasant confrontation.”
Jabotinsky’s words are an echo from exile and trauma, but they resonate loudly today. His demand is simple: That Jews must never again accept being prey. Yet in the United Kingdom, the Board of Deputies and other establishment Jewish organizations have failed this moment. By embracing empty leftist platitudes and flirting with pro-Palestinian rhetoric, they’ve become part of the problem, not the solution.
When Jewish blood is spilled in London and Manchester, they issue sterile press releases. They refuse to name the hatred. They refuse to confront its source. They refuse to stand with those who stand up. Instead of embracing proud, unapologetic Zionism and channeling Jabotinsky’s clarity, they chase validation from the very movements that deny Israel’s right to exist and view Jewish self-defense as an embarrassment.
In doing so, they weaken the Jewish community’s capacity to defend itself. They embolden our enemies. And they betray their own people. This won’t change. Not in the United Kingdom. It’s too late. Jabotinsky warned of the cheapness of Jewish blood. Two lives were taken at Heaton Park. Two families were shattered forever. The United Kingdom will not get better; it will get worse.
We urge Jews: Come home to Israel. Now.
