A devastating arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue is now being investigated as a possible terror attack, drawing worldwide attention to a stark increase in antisemitism in Australia.
Masked vandals set the Adass Israel Synagogue aflame on Dec. 6, in one of several incidents that have left the Jewish community seeking support from government leaders.
On Wednesday, Sky News Australia reported a car was destroyed after being set on fire in a Jewish community in Sydney. At least two, but possibly as many as seven, buildings in the area were vandalized, with one graffiti tag reading “kill Israiel” (sic). This rash of hate followed in the wake of a similar incident late last month, when vehicles and a restaurant in the same area were covered with graffiti.
Following the attacks in Sydney, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told Sky News Australia, “Sydney, per capita, has the second-highest number of Holocaust survivors in the world,” explaining that they came “to Australia specifically to be free from this kind of hate.”
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Members of Adass Israel Synagogue recover items after an arson attack on Dec. 6, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia. (Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)
Worshiper Yumi Friedman told Avi Yemini of Rebel News that he was inside the synagogue when he heard banging on the door and saw glass flying. Friedman later said he smelled fire and burned his hand while attempting to open the synagogue door.
Friedman said that responding police told Jewish worshipers to get on the ground and show their hands. “They came and arrested us,” he said. “It took them a while to realize that we’re Jewish and we didn’t do this.”
Zionism is not a feature of the Haredi Judaism that worshipers at the Adass Israel Synagogue practice. Yemini asked members of the community why they believed the non-Zionist synagogue was targeted. “Jews are Jews,” a man wearing a kippah replied. “They’re anti-Jews,” another visibly Jewish man told Yemini. “Not anti-anything else.”
Yemini filmed a protester outside the firebombed synagogue wearing a keffiyeh and a baseball cap featuring the Palestinian flag who held a sign stating “Nothing is more antisemitic than Zionism.”
Antisemitic graffiti in a Jewish area in Melbourne, Australia. (Executive Council of Australian Jewry )
Numerous community members interviewed by Yemini said they felt unsupported by the local government. “People have been attacked here,” one man reminded Victoria Police Detective Inspector Chris Murray, who was present to address the community. “Why don’t you put someone in here?”
“We’re doing our best,” Murray responded.
Murray told crowds that police would “do everything” to “bring these individuals before the courts.” Though they believed the attack was targeted, Murray said that “what we don’t know is why.”
Shane Patton, Victoria police chief commissioner, told reporters at a press conference that the firebombing is being investigated as “a likely terror attack.”
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“Free Palestine” graffiti praising the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre against Israelis. (Executive Council of Australian Jewry )
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been lambasted for his response to the Melbourne attack, which a Sky News Australia host said was “four days too late.” Yemini documented Albanese’s visit to the Adass Israel Synagogue. When the kippah-wearing prime minister failed to answer questions from assembled reporters, Yemini followed him to the car, telling Albanese that “yesterday was the first time you didn’t conflate antisemitism and Islamophobia.”
Though it has faced more intolerance, the Jewish population of Australia is around one-eighth the size of the Muslim population, and has been stagnant or declining while the percentage of Muslims has grown. In 2016, Jewish Australians made up 0.5% of the population, according to Monash University. Muslims made up 2.6% of the population in 2016, according to the University of South Australia. Today, Muslims account for 3.2% of the Australian population while 0.4% of the population is Jewish.
In the aftermath of recent attacks, Albanese stated that the Australian Federal Police will be conducting an operation that would “focus on threats, violence, and hatred” targeting the Jewish community. Reuters reported that Albanese has allocated $25 million (approximately U.S. $15 million) since 2022 to increase security for Jewish organizations. He has also worked to minimize hate speech and banned the Nazi salute.
Sign on a house saying ‘Kill Israiel’ (Fox News)
Many Jewish Australians believe these efforts are not enough. Earlier this month, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) sent an open letter to Albanese, which it shared with Fox News Digital. The ECAJ explained that “the very character of this country as a free, democratic and multicultural society is in peril,” citing the “fear and anxiety” experienced by Jewish Australians who question whether it is safe to display signs of their Judaism or publicly celebrate their faith and heritage.
Though the ECAJ expressed gratitude to Albanese for “swiftly condemning” the arson in Melbourne, they requested that he act in response to “what is now a national antisemitism crisis.” Among their requests are an increase in security funding, support for antisemitism education in schools, enforcement of laws against harassment and intimidation, and support for higher government efforts to curtail antisemitism in universities.
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pushes his way through a crowd after visiting the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (Joel Carrett/AAP Image via AP)
Albanese’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment about criticisms of the prime minister’s reaction to the Melbourne firebombing, his response to the ECAJ’s letter, and whether the country’s shift regarding a Palestinian state might have an impact on the state of antisemitic hate in Australia.
As it has worldwide, antisemitism has risen dramatically in Australia since Oct. 7, according to an ECAJ report from November 2024. Reporting entities counted 2,062 antisemitic incidents in Australia between Oct. 1, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024, compared with 495 incidents tallied during the prior 12 months. This represents a 316% increase in expressions of anti-Jewish hate, which began as early as Oct. 8, when the ECAJ reported that Sheikh Ibrahim Daoud told an audience in western Sydney that he was “elated,” explaining, “it’s a day of pride, it’s a day of victory.”
The ECAJ sent Fox News Digital a trove of photographs showing acts of hate directed against Jewish Australians. These included an incident from November 2023, when unknown individuals sprayed “Kill Jews” and “Jew lives here” on a residential unit in southeast Melbourne, and wrote “Jew-free zone” in a Brunswick window, as reported by the Jewish Independent.
Protesters gather in Melbourne to demand justice for Palestinian victims of violence, on Dec. 1, 2024. (Ye Myo Khant/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The government responded to some major acts of antisemitism. In February, anti-Israel activists released a document featuring the “names and other personal details” of 600 Jewish musicians, writers, academics and artists in a WhatsApp group whose communications were also leaked.
Seven months later, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus announced a proposed sentence of up to six years in prison for those who release individuals’ private details in order to cause harm. The punishment would increase to seven years if a victim was targeted because of their race, religion or sexual orientation, among other factors.
A cyclist passes by the Adass Israel Synagogue in the Ripponlea suburb of Melbourne in the wake of the firebomb attack, on Dec. 8, 2024. (Alexander Bogatyrev/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In recognition of the rising intolerance in Australia, on Dec. 9, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel advisory warning Jews to “exercise extreme caution” if visiting the country. As Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s director of global social action, explained, authorities there have failed “to stand up against persistent demonization, harassment and violence against Jews and Jewish institutions in Australia.”