CORAL GABLES, Fla. — South Florida Jews are rallying together in the face of hate on their holiest day of the year.

Congregants at Temple Judea, a synagogue in Coral Gables, said a deadly terrorist attack targeting Jews in Manchester, England on Yom Kippur will not stop them from practicing their faith openly.

6 p.m. report:

South Florida Jewish community comes together on Yom Kippur following UK attack

Longtime congregants Jason and Katie Goldstritch brought their children, 2 and 4, to services on Thursday.

“I think it’s really important to show them community and we’re going to spend the day here on Yom Kippur,” Jason Goldstritch said.

Security was tight around the temple.

“Right now, everyone is aware of security, regardless of faith (or) ethnicity,” Sharon Israel Moskovitz, the temple’s executive director, said. “We saw what happened just this past week at a church, at another house of worship. And regardless of who we are or where we come from, we need to be safe. We need to feel safe.”

And Yom Kippur falls just days away from the anniversary of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, the Oct. 7 Hamas assault.

“We still are one community, and so we look to our past and we learn about resilience,” Rabbi Judith Siegal said. “We learn about our history and we know that our people have been persecuted for many, many generations and yet we’re still here.

“And so we learn from that, and we look at what’s happening in the world and try to keep on going in a positive direction with hope for peace in the future.”

Thursday, a Nova Music Festival attendee, Shalev Biton, told his story of survival Temple Judea.

He said he ran five miles from the festival and hid inside a building.

“There are terrorists on motorcycles coming here, and we had the plan to run outside and hide in the cotton fields,” he said.

Biton said he and seven others laid underneath a building to hide as they heard shouting.

“I was sure these are the last moments of my life,” he said.

As he was praying, Biton said an Arab Muslim farmer Yunis Alkarnawi, who also visited the temple to tell his story.

“He asked me if he will help me and I said I will, then he said we are with five other people hiding,” said Alkarnawi, who is credited with saving at least 30 people that day.

The temple says they flew in the men to tell their story and remind people of the goodness that still exists in the world.

Celebrating Yom Kippur, South Florida Jews rally as ‘one community’ after UK attack

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