Tensions between Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy and Britain’s Jewish community escalated on Friday when the politician was met with jeers and boos at a vigil for victims of the Manchester synagogue terrorist attack.

Mr. Lammy was heckled with shouts of “shame on you,” “you have blood on your hands,” and “go to Palestine” as he attempted to deliver a unifying speech to Manchester’s Jewish community. Scoffs and laughter erupted when the Labour politician greeted the crowd as “friends.” Some attendees carried banners reading: “No more words. We demand action.”

The vigil followed a deadly attack on the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue at Crumpsall, Manchester, during Yom Kippur services — Judaism’s holiest day. Two people were killed and four seriously injured when a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent, Jihad al-Shamie, drove his car into congregants before attacking them with a knife. Police shot the attacker dead at the scene.

Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, were named Friday as the victims. The Greater Manchester police chief constable, Sir Stephen Watson, stated that one of them was likely hit accidentally by police gunfire.

During his address, Mr. Lammy described the attack as “senseless” and urged the public to “stand together” in “grief, solidarity, and defiance.” The crowd erupted again when he denounced the “terrorists who seek to divide us,” with attendees shouting that he had “enabled it, every Saturday” — a reference to weekly anti-Israel marches at London and other major British cities.

Toward the end of his speech, Mr. Lammy addressed the marches, imploring those planning to attend this weekend’s to “reflect with all human dignity, grace and understanding” and to “stop and stand back.”

The British government — led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer since Labour’s 2024 general election victory — has faced mounting criticism for failing to curb the spike in antisemitism that erupted following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

Mr. Starmer has also drawn condemnation for formally recognizing Palestine as a sovereign state even while Hamas still holds Israeli hostages. 

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, responded to Thursday’s attack by noting that “blatant and rampant antisemitic and anti-Israeli incitement, as well as calls of support for terror, have recently become a widespread phenomenon” in Britain’s cities and campuses. He held British authorities responsible for allowing this “toxic wave of antisemitism” to “persist.”

“We expect more than words from the Starmer government. We expect and demand a change of course, effective action, and enforcement against the rampant antisemitic and anti-Israeli incitement in Britain,” Mr. Sa’ar wrote.