Yoni Finlay, who was shot and seriously wounded during the Yom Kippur terror attack at Manchester’s Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, says he is considering moving to Israel due to growing antisemitism in the UK.
Finlay told The Sunday Times that he and his ex-wife are debating whether to relocate with their four children. He said his children have faced antisemitism and that the climate in Britain has shifted dramatically: “There is so much anger and so much hate… People being angry at Israel shouldn’t turn that into hatred of Jews.”
Finlay described the attack on October 2, when terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie rammed his car into pedestrians, stabbed victims, and attempted to force his way into the synagogue. Congregants Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed. Police shot Shamie dead outside the building.
Finlay recalled helping barricade the entrance when a police bullet, believed to have passed through the attacker, struck him. “I was putting pressure on the wound like you see in the films,” he said. His father, a retired doctor who was present, told him he felt helpless because he wasn’t trained for gunshot trauma.
Finlay emphasized he does not want the officer who fired the shot to lose his job: “The police ran toward danger to protect us.”
He said the attack left him feeling he had come “face-to-face with evil,” and the experience—along with increasing antisemitic sentiment—has pushed him to consider seeking safety and stability in Israel.
