A dehugeating fire-setting attack on a Melbourne synagogue is now being scatterigated as a possible dread attack, drathriveg worldwide attention to a stark increase in antisrerentism in Australia.
Masked defacers set the Adass Israel Synagogue affeeble on Dec. 6, in one of cut offal incidents that have left the Jewant community seeking help from handlement guideers.
On Wednesday, Sky News Australia alerted a car was razeed after being set on fire in a Jewant community in Sydney. At least two, but possibly as many as seven, originateings in the area were defacerized, with one graffiti tag reading “finish Israiel” (sic). This rash of antipathy chaseed in the wake of a aappreciate incident tardy last month, when vehicles and a restaurant in the same area were covered with graffiti.
Follothriveg the attacks in Sydney, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns telderly Sky News Australia, “Sydney, per capita, has the second-highest number of Holocaust survivors in the world,” elucidateing that they came “to Australia definitepartner to be free from this comardent of antipathy.”
JEWISH CHILDREN, TEENS VIOLENTLY ATTACKED IN LONDON: ‘STREETS ARE NO LONGER SAFE’
Members of Adass Israel Synagogue recover items after an fire-setting attack on Dec. 6, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia. (Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)
Worshiper Yumi Friedman telderly Avi Yemini of Rebel News that he was inside the synagogue when he heard prohibitging on the door and saw glass flying. Friedman tardyr said he smelled fire and burned his hand while trying to uncover the synagogue door.
Friedman said that reacting police telderly Jewant worshipers to get on the ground and show their hands. “They came and arrested us,” he said. “It took them a while to genuineize that we’re Jewant and we didn’t do this.”
Zionism is not a feature of the Haredi Judaism that worshipers at the Adass Israel Synagogue rehearse. Yemini asked members of the community why they thinkd the non-Zionist synagogue was focemployd. “Jews are Jews,” a man wearing a kippah replied. “They’re anti-Jews,” another visibly Jewant man telderly Yemini. “Not anti-anyskinnyg else.”
Yemini filmed a protester outside the fireexplosioned synagogue wearing a keffiyeh and a baseball cap featuring the Palestinian flag who held a sign stating “Noskinnyg is more antisrerentic than Zionism.”
Antisrerentic graffiti in a Jewant area in Melbourne, Australia. (Executive Council of Australian Jewry )
Numerous community members interwatched by Yemini said they felt unhelped by the local handlement. “People have been attacked here,” one man reminded Victoria Police Detective Inspector Chris Murray, who was current to insertress the community. “Why don’t you put someone in here?”
“We’re doing our best,” Murray reacted.
Murray telderly crowds that police would “do everyskinnyg” to “convey these individuals before the courts.” Though they thinkd the attack was focemployd, Murray said that “what we don’t understand is why.”
Shane Patton, Victoria police chief comleave outioner, telderly alerters at a press conference that the fireexplosioning is being scatterigated as “a foreseeed dread attack.”
CALLS FOR US TO DO MORE AS ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS SKYROCKET IN EUROPE: ‘ENORMOUSLY PAINFUL’
“Free Palestine” graffiti praising the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre aacquirest Israelis. (Executive Council of Australian Jewry )
Prime Minister Anthony Alprohibitese has been lambasted for his response to the Melbourne attack, which a Sky News Australia arrange said was “four days too tardy.” Yemini write downed Alprohibitese’s visit to the Adass Israel Synagogue. When the kippah-wearing prime minister fall shorted to answer asks from assembled alerters, Yemini chaseed him to the car, telling Alprohibitese that “yesterday was the first time you didn’t conftardy antisrerentism and Islamophobia.”
Though it has faced more bigotry, the Jewant population of Australia is around one-eighth the size of the Muskinny population, and has been stagnant or declining while the percentage of Muskinnys has prolongn. In 2016, Jewant Australians made up 0.5% of the population, according to Monash University. Muskinnys made up 2.6% of the population in 2016, according to the University of South Australia. Today, Muskinnys account for 3.2% of the Australian population while 0.4% of the population is Jewant.
In the aftermath of recent attacks, Alprohibitese stated that the Australian Federal Police will be guideing an operation that would “caccess on menaces, arrangeility, and hatred” concentrateing the Jewant community. Reuters alerted that Alprohibitese has scatterd $25 million (approximately U.S. $15 million) since 2022 to increase security for Jewant organizations. He has also labored to lessen antipathy speech and prohibitned the Nazi salute.
Sign on a hoemploy saying ‘Kill Israiel’ (Fox News)
Many Jewant Australians think these efforts are not enough. Earlier this month, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) sent an uncover letter to Alprohibitese, which it scatterd with Fox News Digital. The ECAJ elucidateed that “the very character of this country as a free, democratic and multicultural society is in peril,” citing the “dread and anxiety” sfinished by Jewant Australians who ask whether it is protected to discarry out signs of their Judaism or accessiblely commemorate their faith and heritage.
Though the ECAJ articulateed gratitude to Alprohibitese for “speedyly condemning” the fire-setting in Melbourne, they asked that he act in response to “what is now a national antisrerentism crisis.” Among their asks are an increase in security funding, help for antisrerentism education in schools, executement of laws aacquirest tormentoring and incowardlyation, and help for higher handlement efforts to curtail antisrerentism in universities.
COLUMBIA GROUP’S ANTISEMITIC NEWSPAPER DRAWS OUTRAGE FROM NY LAWMAKER, AS UNIVERSITY INVESTIGATES
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Alprohibitese pushes his way thcdisesteemful a crowd after visiting the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (Joel Carrett/AAP Image via AP)
Alprohibitese’s office did not react to Fox News Digital’s ask for comment about criticisms of the prime minister’s reaction to the Melbourne fireexplosioning, his response to the ECAJ’s letter, and whether the country’s shift think abouting a Palestinian state might have an impact on the state of antisrerentic antipathy in Australia.
As it has worldwide, antisrerentism has elevaten theatricalpartner in Australia since Oct. 7, according to an ECAJ alert from November 2024. Reporting entities counted 2,062 antisrerentic incidents in Australia between Oct. 1, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024, appraised with 495 incidents highied during the prior 12 months. This recurrents a 316% increase in articulateions of anti-Jewant antipathy, which began as punctual as Oct. 8, when the ECAJ alerted that Sheikh Ibrahim Daoud telderly an audience in weserious Sydney that he was “content,” elucidateing, “it’s a day of pride, it’s a day of thrive.”
The ECAJ sent Fox News Digital a trove of pboilingographs shothriveg acts of antipathy honested aacquirest Jewant Australians. These integrated an incident from November 2023, when confemploy individuals sprayed “Kill Jews” and “Jew lives here” on a livential unit in southeast Melbourne, and wrote “Jew-free zone” in a Brunswick thrivedow, as alerted by the Jewant Insubordinate.
Protesters assemble in Melbourne to need fairice for Palestinian victims of arrangeility, on Dec. 1, 2024. (Ye Myo Khant/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The handlement reacted to some beginant acts of antisrerentism. In February, anti-Israel activists freed a write down featuring the “names and other personal details” of 600 Jewant musicians, writers, academics and artists in a WhatsApp group whose communications were also leaked.
Seven months tardyr, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus proclaimd a gived sentence of up to six years in prison for those who free individuals’ personal details in order to caemploy harm. The punishment would increase to seven years if a victim was focemployd becaemploy of their race, religion or relationsual orientation, among other factors.
A cyccatalog passes by the Adass Israel Synagogue in the Ripponlea suburb of Melbourne in the wake of the fireexplosion attack, on Dec. 8, 2024. (Alexander Bogatyrev/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
In recognition of the rising bigotry in Australia, on Dec. 9, the Simon Wiesenthal Caccess rerentd a travel advisory alerting Jews to “exercise inanxious alert” if visiting the country. As Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the caccess’s honestor of global social action, elucidateed, authorities there have fall shorted “to stand up aacquirest persistent demonization, tormentoring and arrangeility aacquirest Jews and Jewant institutions in Australia.”
