'We love life'

Jews show solidarity and vigilance after foiled terror attack

- Chris Osuh Community affairs correspondent

"They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat," Andrew Walters said. It is an old Jewish joke that's as relevant as ever in Greater Manchester in the face of today's threats.

For Walters, the independent councillor for Kersal and Broughton Park, Salford, the joke encapsulates the good-humoured resilience that is a defining feature of his Orthodox Jewish community.

This vibrant neighbourhood was identified as a target by an Islamic State sleeper cell, whose plot to “kill as many Jews as possible” in a marauding attack was thwarted. Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein were both found guilty yesterday of terrorism offences.

The plot had not shaken the community’s desire to get on with its neighbours, Walters said. “My business partner is a religious Muslim and we get on great,” said the tax adviser and father of nine, who in his spare time campaigns for medical cannabis and psilocybin to be made widely available on the NHS.

Saadaoui and Hussein, in common with other extremists who have targeted Jews in Greater Manchester, saw the community only through the warped, reductive lens of antisemitism. They were not interested in how lifestyles, incomes, religious practice and political views vary, and how social concerns typical of many British communities, such as poverty, are pressing.

Michelle Ciffer Klein runs the Hershel Weiss children and families centre, which supports 650 families - including large ultra-Orthodox families who do not use smartphones, internet or television - and some Muslim women. Ciffer Klein built up the service from one room in a synagogue to a buzzing, council-funded facility offering mother and baby groups, clinics, a Citizens Advice bureau, summer trips, adult education, Hanukah gift drives, food and debt support.

In December, it launched the Spread a Little Light project to support community cohesion through Hanukah festivities.