Leap of faith: real Britishness

In a terrible tragedy three young girls were killed in Southport on 29 July. A further eight children and two adults were injured. The knife attacker has been arrested and charged.

False claims on social media about the suspect spread like wildfire, some saying that the suspect had arrived in the UK on a small boat in 2023 and naming him as Ali al-Shakati, with no official source for either. The Islamic Centre in Southport was attacked with bricks and fire. The far-right stoked it all up countrywide as far as possible. They have kept rioting and intimidation going for two weeks so far.

By 1 August, we were told who was actually arrested and charged: a British-born Christian boy of 17, born to Rwandan parents who had immigrated to the UK completely legally. He was of a skin colour that led ignorant racists to assume that he was Muslim, and then decide to attack any local Muslim.

Jews know the heart of a stranger. We know that Islamophobia never creates a screen to make Jews safe. Indeed the two Southport synagogues remain on high alert.

The writer Russ Jones wrote:  “Even if the attacker was born overseas, Muslim, on benefits etc – it doesn’t matter.  You know who did this terrible crime?  One man. Not his parents, not his compatriots, not his faith, not his colour, not his ancestry. Just him. Literally, everybody else is innocent.”

Judaism reaches the same conclusion. In Midrash Numbers Rabbah 11:7 R. Eleazar Hakkappar says: “Great is peace, for the seal of the whole of our prayers is peace, and the seal of the priestly benediction is peace.”

When one man attacks others, Jews demand that our society creates peace and works for peace through the application of justice – never mob rule nor revenge feuding as that will pollute the whole land with violence. Moses sets up six towns throughout Israel for anyone who has killed to flee to in order to await justice – the Levite Cities of Refuge. No one gets away with murder, but it is not in the hands of anyone but the legal authorities to exact justice. (Numbers 35:11ff.) Real Judaism utterly condemns the public spreading of violence outside of the rule of law.

Right-wing rioters do not represent real Britishness, but real Britishness still exists. Bricklayer Tony Hill worked all day in the hot sun, voluntarily, to restore the wall of the Southport mosque.

Racist thugs, who had gone to Southport to, in the words of their chants, ‘get their country back’, had kicked in the doors of Chanaka Balasuriya’s minimart and looted over £10k of stock. Local Southport hair salon owner Rose Tucker then immediately raised over £10k from hundreds of donors to pay him back for his losses.

Communities have gathered nationwide to defend facilities that support refugees, to help secure mosques and to demonstrate on the streets that Britain is a welcoming home.

That’s real Britishness, and Jews should never let the far right try to persuade us otherwise.