Brisbane, Australia
CNN
—
Vandals attacked a Jewish area of Sydney overnight, torching a stolen car and scrawling antisemitic words on walls, prompting a swift response from authorities who say antisemitism has no place in multicultural Australia.
The attack in the eastern suburb of Woollahra comes as police search for three suspects over an arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on Friday and follows other antisemitic attacks by vandals in Sydney.
The spate of attacks has prompted authorities to set up a special task force, Operation Avalite, to tackle antisemitism and increase patrols of Jewish sites including schools and synagogues.
Speaking Wednesday alongside the New South Wales Police Commissioner and Jewish community leaders, state Premier Chris Minns said the latest vandalism was “a deliberate attack designed to put fear into the hearts of the people that live in Sydney’s east.”
He said he’d spoken to Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, on Wednesday and assured him that authorities took the matter very seriously.
“I made it very clear to him that we regarded this as a disgusting display of antisemitism, and that the vast, vast majority of people that live in New South Wales are horrified by it and recognize Israel as an ally and friend of Australia,” Minns said.
Maimon also took to social media platform X to condemn the attack. “This rising tide of antisemitism must end now,” he said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the attack had no place in Australia.
“Australians want to live peacefully side by side and Australians reject this abhorrent criminal behavior,” he told ABC Radio National. “This is not a political act. This does not change anything that is occurring on the ground in the Middle East. This is an attack against their fellow Australians.”
Rising antisemitism
Australia’s Jewish community has reported thousands of antisemitic incidents in the past year, as tensions rise over Israel’s unrelenting offensive in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attack.
More than 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage by Hamas fighters on that day, according to Israeli authorities. In the year since, Israel has bombed the coastal strip in pursuit of Hamas and the return of the hostages, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The conflict has spilled onto Australian streets in the form of pro-Palestinian rallies, including at university campuses that mirrored student protests in the United States.
At the same time, the Jewish community has reported a rise in antisemitic incidents that include a previous attack in Woollahra in November when 10 cars were damaged and graffiti was scrawled on nearby buildings. Two men ages 19 and 20 have been charged with multiple offenses.
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), said the most recent Woollahra attack was “completely predictable” because authorities had failed to adequately respond to previous incidents.
“We’ve seen a progression from increasingly aggressive and hateful street rallies, the burning of flags, slogans daubed on public buildings and graffiti, the intimidation and vilification of individuals, a surge in online hatred to now this,” he told CNN.
“It’s predictable… It moves from the online space and from words to actions, and the fear in the community now is that someone’s going to get killed very soon.”
Ryvchin said the deployment of extra police to Jewish sites is necessary in the circumstances, but the Jewish community does not want “more guards, more fences, higher walls.”
“None of that makes anyone feel safer. It makes people feel more insecure, more vulnerable,” he said.
Ryvchin said a longer-term solution lies in education “to teach people about this form of hatred and what it does to communities and what it does to society and humanity.”
Later Wednesday, Albanese said 8.5 million Australian dollars ($5.4 million) would be spent on redeveloping Sydney Jewish Museum to promote greater understanding of Jewish culture and the contribution of Jewish Australians to the country.