The Manchester synagogue attack is a reminder of the need for tolerance to prevail - Jayne Dowle

It might not feel like it, as marches and demonstrations in support of proscribed terrorist organisation, Palestine Action, continue, but people of all faiths and none are thinking now about the 285,000-300,000 Jewish people who live in the UK, a population roughly equivalent in size to the citizens of Doncaster (308,108, figures according to the 2021 census).

In our region, Jewish people have long contributed greatly to trade, commerce, education and charitable endeavours. Michael Marks, for instance, co-founder of that globally-famous brand Marks & Spencer, came to Leeds as a Jewish refugee from Slonim (in present-day Belarus) in 1884 and opened the first Marks & Spencer stall in the city shortly afterwards.

Still, many of us won’t have Jewish friends or even know any Jewish people, but we’re all rapidly learning about how their lives are lived in fear of attack, abuse and now terrorism, on British soil.

Even children at Jewish-oriented schools, it’s reported, have to take off blazers and ties on the way home, to avoid being identified, spat on and called disgusting names.

It makes me so sad that the young are targeted, because they will go forth into the world knowing that they are reviled.

It didn’t used to be like this. As a student, I had lots of friends with Jewish and Middle Eastern heritage, who practised – or didn’t – between them a range of faiths. My first editor, on a women’s magazine, was a Jewish woman, originally from Cardiff in Wales. She observed strict religious rules. But in the massive multi-cultural melting point that was London in the early 1990s, I never recall anyone passing comment or making judgements regarding her faith. Even back then, however, her husband took his turn on security patrol outside the synagogue.

The targeting of Jewish people in the UK has increased since Israel retaliated with force to the Hamas-led kidnapping, rape and murder of hundreds of Jewish people on October 7, 2023. This included 18 British nationals murdered and two taken hostage, one of whom was killed in captivity, with another released after being held for almost 500 days.

I keep the description simple to avoid adding fuel to the fire; it’s so easy to do so these days. I can see all sides of the terrible situation between Israel and Gaza and hold several conflicting ideas in my head at the same time.

But we must spread the word that what happens overseas should not be allowed to create further schism here, in a country once renowned for liberalism. For every action, there is a reaction. For every point scored for or against Jewish people, or people of the Muslim faith, or those who feel it necessary to festoon their home with Union flags in the name of ‘patriotism’, someone else will either join their cause, or suffer.

Have we not known enough of such sectarianism? Parts of the UK are still riven with the dissent between Catholics and Protestants. Why, when we know how much pain, loss and bloodshed this has caused over the centuries, would we want to re-run such division?

Why should one community have to live in fear of another, with all the reprisals and tit-for-tat revenges this entails?

For once, we are fortunate in our political leadership. The Prime Minister’s wife, Victoria, is Jewish and they raise their children in the faith. His first priority as Labour leader was to root out the anti-semitism that the previous incumbent, Jeremy Corbyn, had allowed to run riot.

His new home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, meanwhile, is a devout Muslim. In a recent newspaper interview, she said: “My faith is the centrepoint of my life and it drives me to public service, it drives me in the way that I live my life and I see my life.” She called for pro-Palestine protesters to pause their calls for Israel’s destruction, for a few days at least, while the Jewish community buried its dead.

Together, Starmer and Mahmood form an impressive bulkhead. We need them to keep leading from the front, showing those who veer towards extremism that understanding and collaboration between people of different faiths and cultures is very much possible.

We can’t control what happens in other countries, but we can steer what happens in our own. Only through open and honest dialogue can all our communities live in peace.