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.”
Other speakers at the memorial service included Alan Levy, who helped barricade the doors against the attacker, and Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson.
Although the first anniversary of the Heaton Park attack is not until October, the Jewish community will mark it on the religious anniversary rather than by the secular calendar.
The attack happened on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, which falls in September this year.
Rabbi Walker said the service was being held because the community also wanted to hold a public memorial before the Jewish High Holy Days, both to ensure those affected are remembered by wider society and to call for change in society.
