UK at the Crossroads 

Jewish community in shock over synagogue terror attack

The terror attack at the Manchester synagogue that left several people dead is a further stab in the back for Britain’s beleaguered Jewish community.

Manchester in focus

In expressing his sympathies, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s words will have rung hollow with those who have accused him of rewarding terrorism by recognising a Palestinian state.The Jewish people have been facing this terrorism for a long time. At the Labour Conference, British-Israeli rabbi Leo Dee at the Labour Party conference, reminded attendees that Hamas killed his wife and two daughters in Israel just six months before the October 7th 2023 massacre.

And now, in the wake of the appalling arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue less than a year ago, it is Manchester’s Jews who are under fire.
 
The city was also the scene of an horrific atrocity in May 2017 when 22 died and more than 100 were injured by Islamist suicide bomber Salman Abedi at a pop concert featuring Ariana Grande.

CMJ (the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people) have also consistently been reaching out to Arabs over the years 

But the Yom Kippur attack in north Manchester reminds me of a very different event that took place in the city ten years ago. And that brings me hope. I wrote a chapter about it – entitled Middle East Peace in Manchester – in my book A Nation Reborn (Christian Publications International).

Hope arising

The shocking surge of antisemitism we have been witnessing of late is a complete contrast to the loving arms I saw reaching out to one another when delegates from all over the Arab world came together for a unique conference.
 
As Iran continued its aggressive stance against Israel, threatening to wipe the Jewish state off the map, Iranian refugees and asylum seekers embraced their Jewish ‘brothers’, some of whom had travelled from Jerusalem to meet them. Also present was a sizeable contingent of Egyptians, along with representatives from Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria. Others wanting to join them had been unable to get visas.
 
As part of the great untold story of the Middle East, the three-day conference was hosted by CMJ (the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people). Although working mainly among Jews since its founding in 1809, CMJ have also consistently been reaching out to Arabs over the years and, in 2012, held their first At the Crossroads conference in Jerusalem to enable Jew and Gentile to express their oneness in Christ and work together to spread the gospel on the basis of a prophecy from Isaiah (chapter 19) of a ‘highway’ of peace and reconciliation from Egypt to Assyria (which includes much of the modern-day Arab world) via Israel.

Sessions were interspersed with times of worship in Arabic, Farsi (the language spoken in Iran), Hebrew and English, creating a beautiful atmosphere of shared love and identity.

In 2014, for the second of what is now a regular event (covered in my book Peace in Jerusalem, available from olivepresspublisher.com), a number of UK-based Iranians, as well as a group of Egyptians, were turned back at the border and thus missed out on a chance to meet up with other Muslim-background believers from all over the region at a conference hosted by Jewish believers in Jesus, generally known as Messianic Jews.

‘One new man’ solution

And so, UK at the Crossroads was arranged to encourage and inspire those who would struggle – mainly due to visa issues – to enter Israel. Sessions were interspersed with times of worship in Arabic, Farsi (the language spoken in Iran), Hebrew and English, creating a beautiful atmosphere of shared love and identity.
 
Communication may have been challenging at times, but you only had to look into each other’s eyes to know you were one in Christ who, in the words of St Paul, destroys the dividing wall of hostility, creating “one new man” out of the two, thus making peace and reconciling both of them to God through the cross. (See Ephesians 2:14-16)

Peace for Jerusalem and for the Arab world can only come through faith in the blood shed by Christ Jesus on the cross

Beirut-based Robert Sakr, one of the visionaries behind the conference, said: “There’s no such thing as a peace process apart from Jesus. In the 55 [now 65] years I’ve lived in the Middle East, there has been no political solution.”
 
A thought echoed by the late missionary to the Arab world, Tom Hamblin, who, in urging prayer for the salvation of both Jews and Arabs, said: “Peace for Jerusalem and for the Arab world can only come through faith in the blood shed by Christ Jesus on the cross.”
 
As I said in a recent post, there is no ‘two-state solution’ – only a ‘one new man’ solution!