Heaton Park synagogue attack memorial service attended by 800

Yoni Finlay, who was hit by a stray police bullet while helping to barricade the doors during the attack, said: “An evil person tried to destroy us on Yom Kippur and together we have not let that evil win.

“When I was lying on the floor in the foyer, just through those doors, with four of my organs badly damaged by a bullet that had gone through me, I made myself a promise, that I would not die, this is not where my life was going to end.

“But I could not do this on my own, and neither could the shul. We could only do this with the support of the people around us.”

He said he was lucky enough to have an amazing family, “but we are also an incredible community”.

“I realised that maybe, just maybe, we were going to be okay, when we showed that rather than being stopped, we were more together than ever”.

Earlier, asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about how the Jewish community in the UK feels almost a year on, he said: “I don’t think things feel safer, I think we certainly live behind ever increasing gates, more security than we’ve ever had.

“Jewish people are having to hide their identity. Even my own son, who’s in college at the moment, has faced death threats.”