Manchester synagogue volunteer describes confronting attacker

A volunteer security guard at a Manchester synagogue who confronted the man who went on to attack worshippers has said if the attacker had had a gun he would have been killed.

Ivor Rosenberg, 78, was working alongside paid security guards at Heaton Park synagogue ahead of a Yom Kippur service on Thursday morning.

He said another volunteer had told him there was a “suspicious-looking man” who claimed to have been looking for a nearby pub before “disappearing” down the alleyway next to the building.

Mr Rosenberg said when he looked he saw the man “gazing into the synagogue”.

Mr Rosenberg added: “There was a fence between us and I said, ‘What are you doing?’ and he says, ‘I’m looking for my car’.”

He said the attacker, named by police as Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, appeared to be “up to no good” so was asked to leave.

But he returned a short time later, and when he was asked to leave again he reportedly told security guards: “This is a free country, I can go wherever I want.”

Greater Manchester Police and counter terrorism officers investigating the attack have said Al-Shamie left the synagogue on foot and returned in a car, driving at and then stabbing worshippers.

Mr Rosenberg said: “I heard this almighty bang, turned around and saw the car, a dark car, smashed into the wall and gates.”

He and another volunteer, Alan Levy, ran into the building.

“I rushed straight into the office and I dialled the police and I was screaming down the phone, ‘we’re under attack, we’re under attack’,” Mr Rosenberg said.

“I got to the doors while he was still banging [with] the knife in his hand and shouting ‘let me in, I’m going to kill you’.”

Mr Rosenberg was among the people who were holding the synagogue’s doors shut from the inside as Al-Shamie walked around trying to gain access before police arrived.

He said: “There were words between the police and him and then I heard shots.

“Everyone who was guarding the doors, they’re all heroes. They stopped a massacre.”

The attack resulted in the deaths of Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53.

Mr Daulby is understood to have died when he was hit by a stray bullet as police fired at Al-Shamie, who was wearing a suspicious device later found to have been a fake explosive vest.

Three more people injured in the attack remain in hospital.

Mr Rosenberg said: “We are devastated. We’ve lost two of our members killed because they were Jewish. And it could have been any of us.

“I said to Alan [Levy] when we confronted him at the front of the shul, if he had a gun, we’d both be dead.”

Mr Rosenberg, who was born in Scotland, added: “I don’t think this is a safe country for Jews to live in.

“That’s what happened last Thursday and I think that will happen again.”

He said the Jewish community anticipated that such an attack was imminent but said “we never dreamt it would happen to us”.

“I’m worried for the future, not for my future, but for my children and my grandchildren and their children,” Mr Rosenberg said.

As the Jewish community prepares for the upcoming Sukkot festival, Mr Rosenberg said such celebrations would be “very different” this year.

In total, six people have been arrested after the attack.

Four have been held on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism, with two people arrested on the day of the attack since released without charge.

More than 1,000 people attended a rally in Manchester city centre on Sunday which commemorated those killed and injured in the attack.