When news broke in the small hours of Thursday morning that a synagogue had been attacked in Manchester, England, four reporters headed straight to the scene: Ophira Gottlieb, Jack Dulhanty, Jack Walton, and Mollie Simpson. All of them work for The Mill, an award-winning site that is bringing local news into the digital era. This is what they heard. — The Editors
MANCHESTER, United Kingdom — News of the attack moved slowly through Crumpsall.
As people around the world learned the full horror of what had happened at half past nine yesterday morning outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, some of the suburb’s most observant Jews were still deep in prayer.
Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, a day of fasting in which you don’t eat, drive, or even use your phone. Many Orthodox Jews stay in synagogue all day long and pray.
More than four hours after the attack, in a makeshift synagogue in an abandoned hotel a few minutes’ walk away, a room full of women were praying on the floor, young Jewish girls kneeling over golden Bibles. Elesheba, a woman aged about 50, turned to our reporter and explained the sacredness of the biblical passages in a hushed voice.
