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Manchester attack and that sense of déjà vu that leaves a hollow feeling in my stomach

Melissa Sonnino, Facing Facts Network Director, reflects on the impact of the Manchester attack and what it means for Jewish communities today.

I learned of the attack from my mother, as I was reaching the end of my Yom Kippur fast. The news spread by word of mouth while most Jews were still in synagogue, praying, their phones and TVs switched off for the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar.

It was already an uneasy holiday. Since October 7, 2023, the feeling of isolation and threat has grown sharper for Jews everywhere. The timing of the Global Sumud flotilla journey, its arrival planned for Yom Kippur, when most Jews disconnect from the world , had put communities on high alert. No one knew what kind of reaction it might provoke in the diaspora. Not a great way to enter a solemn holiday. Not a great way to exercise, as a citizen, my right to religious freedom.

I cannot exactly describe how it feels when news like this reaches us: despair, dizziness, as if the axis of your world suddenly shifts.

When I heard it had happened in Manchester, my thoughts immediately went to the wonderful people I had met years ago at a Limmud Festival¹ there. The joy and energy of that day stayed with me for a long time. The Manchester Jewish Telegraph even wrote a piece about me afterwards. I connected with people, shared a drink with new friends. It is deeply human to feel more shaken when you know the people and the places. But it is not only that. As Jews, we feel connected across the world. We don’t just share religion, traditions, or culture, with all the diversity and richness within Judaism. Unfortunately we also share a history of suffering and resilience. Hate crimes are message crimes: one Jew killed is a message to all Jews everywhere.

My heart is with all British Jews and the extraordinary people working for the community there. Through my work, I have had the privilege of collaborating closely with the Community Security Trust (CST). They represent a golden standard in hate crime prevention, data collection, and response. At that time, what impressed me most was not only their professionalism and the incredible infrastructure they built over the years, but also their commitment to building bridges with other communities, and to establishing communication channels with government and public authorities. It is fair to say that CST, alongside the British government, set the benchmark for multi-stakeholder cooperation on hate crime in Europe.

In the hours following the attack, I watched the news and listened to statements from CST and representatives of other British Jewish organisations. I was struck by their dignity, by their measured and sensible words in a moment of mourning and pain.

Here in Italy, where I live, the news received little coverage. TV and newspapers were largely focused on the flotilla. Except for two close friends, no one from my non-Jewish circles reached out to ask how I felt, or how my community was doing. This silence has lasted for some time now. 

That silence brought back the memory of the 2014 attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels², and the distress I carried with me in the months that followed. At that time, I was living there, and I remember how little people seemed to care that four lives had been taken. Two of the victims were Israeli, and somehow that seemed to make it easier for some to dismiss the tragedy, as if it mattered less. But that misses the point entirely. When you open fire in a Jewish museum, the target is not only those struck by the bullets: it is the entire community that the place represents. It is a hate crime meant to send a message of intimidation and to break normality apart.

That hollow feeling in my stomach came back after the Manchester attack, and hasn’t left since.

The impact of such events on Jewish communities worldwide is hard to grasp unless you experience it. 

The day after the attack, I took my children to their Jewish school with a heavy heart, but convinced it was the right thing to do, to continue living fully, as citizens of this country. And yet, it was painful to see the school half-empty, security at its highest, parents avoiding chatter at the gate, my hands gripping theirs tightly at pick-up time.

What is perhaps most devastating is how antisemitism has become increasingly normalised. In some online environments, on both left and right, it is even glorified. Antisemitism online, it is spreading unchecked, amplified by polarised social media that act as engines of normalisation for every kind of racism. We failed to contain it. And now it feels ambient, like the air itself is harder to breathe. 

Hate crimes do not happen in a vacuum. Online violent rhetoric, the normalisation of hate, creates the fertile ground in which bias-motivated violence grows. We knew that after October 7th the risk of attacks against Jewish communities had increased. CST and many other organisations across Europe have done extraordinary prevention work, monitoring and analysing patterns of hate both online and offline. Prevention measures have been adapted again and again to respond to the growing risks. And yet, on the day of the attack, that very fear we worked so hard to anticipate and contain materialised. And it is devastating.

My heart is broken. I feel the pain of Manchester’s Jews, and of all those who work tirelessly to keep their communities safe. I cannot begin to imagine what they are feeling now.

But today, I also hold tight to the few messages I received from my non-Jewish friends and colleagues. That is where I want to start tomorrow. Because for me there is a tomorrow, unlike for those whose lives were stolen. I owe it to my children, and to those whose lives were taken, to at least try to make the world around me a better place. I don’t yet know what this means in practice, or how such a proposal can truly take shape. What I do know, and feel more strongly every day, is that human connection is what matters most. Meaningful interactions are possible both offline and online, but the process needs to be rethought. We need to return to the very reason we seek out others: not simply to confirm what we already believe, but to reopen channels of knowledge, to expose ourselves, sometimes uncomfortably,  to different perspectives, and to embrace the possibility of enriching ourselves through them.

¹  https://limmud.org/

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Museum_of_Belgium_shooting

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