Australia's Jewish community feels abandoned after antisemitic arson - opinion

Friday, December 6, 2024, marks one of the darkest days in Australian Jewish history – a day when the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne fell victim to an arson attack that left the Jewish community grappling with deep despair – but not just despair. 

Anger, too, frustration, and a surreal, almost fatalistic realization that the Australia we thought we knew no longer exists.

I, along with the rest of the Jewish community, am witnessing things that I never, in my wildest imagination, could believe would be happening here. 

Overseas? Certainly. We’ve seen the haunting images: Jews being hunted in the streets of Amsterdam, antisemitic protests outside a Los Angeles synagogue, and violent riots in Montreal, where Hamas supporters smashed windows and set cars ablaze.

These incidents took place in the so-called “enlightened” west, where human rights are paramount, minorities are protected, and Jews have lived without fear – until now.

But here in Australia? In our peaceful, tolerant society?

It could never happen.Except it did, and it is.

Verbally abused

On November 23, in Townsville, of all places, about 2000 km. north of Sydney and about as far removed from the Middle East as you can get, two Jewish Israeli tourists were verbally abused by a shopkeeper, who told one of them, “I don’t give a f**k about Israel, but I do care about the fact that you’re a dirty filthy f**king Jew.” 

Days before this, in Sydney’s Woollahra, a car was set on fire while others were defaced with hateful graffiti reading, “F**k Israel.”

Now, apologists might dismiss these as isolated incidents that don’t specifically target Jews but are just natural reactions to the war in Gaza.

But are they?

Just two days after the October 7 massacre, a mob descended on Australia’s most famous icon, the Sydney Opera House, burning Israeli flags and shouting threateningly, “Where are the Jews?”Perhaps they, like their fellow Jew haters in Amsterdam, were on a “Jew hunt” too.

One month after this, another violent mob descended into the Jewish suburb of Caulfield in Melbourne, forcing Jewish families to evacuate their synagogue during Friday night Shabbat prayers.Was that an isolated incident too?

What about the anti-Jewish graffiti sprayed on buildings and Jewish schools, Jewish students being intimidated on buses, or Jews being violently assaulted in the streets of our cities? Or last week’s anti-Israel demonstration held across from the Great Synagogue in Sydney.Are these also all isolated incidents?

And now a synagogue – the heart of Jewish life – firebombed in the early hours of Friday morning, where two people narrowly escaped with their lives.

Is that an isolated incident too?

Rise in antisemitic incidents

Antisemitism didn’t begin because of the war. In January 2023, a report was released by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry documenting a 42% rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia. That’s 10 months before the October 7 massacre that led to the war. 

After October 7, an updated report released just a couple of weeks ago revealed a shocking increase of 316% in antisemitic incidents across Australia.

Australia can no longer pretend we are immune to this storm of darkness that has swept across the world and has now reached our shores too.

The Jews of Australia are crying out for moral strength and clarity from our country’s leaders, but it is a plea that is going unanswered.

Since it came to power, this government has shattered the warm, bipartisan relationship that had long existed between Australia and Israel. It has harshly criticized Israel’s fight for survival against genocidal forces while supporting one-sided, biased resolutions at the United Nations – resolutions that threaten Israel’s security and very existence. 

In doing so, it has left Australia’s proud Jewish community feeling abandoned in our most desperate time of need.October 7 should have been a definitive wake-up call, a moment of clarity as to where Jew-hatred can lead.But it wasn’t.

As horrifying as that day was, it wasn’t the end but the beginning of a new wave of terror – one that has penetrated our wonderful society and has left a scar on the soul of all Jews in this country.

The Jewish community is reeling, with many difficult conversations taking place, asking if the golden period of Australian Jewish life is coming to an end. 

It is the same conversation that has echoed throughout the Jewish world throughout our history and that my late grandmother had in 1934 when, at just 14 years old, she and her younger brother boarded a boat to escape the rising tide of violent antisemitism in Lithuania.

There’s an Australian saying, “She’ll be right mate.” It means that whatever is wrong in the world will right itself in time.

It’s an optimistic outlook on the world, a feeling that whatever obstacles there are in life, they can be overcome.Jews are an optimistic people; we have to be. But as I look around at the world and Australia too, it’s a little hard to believe, at this moment, that she’ll be right after all. 

The writer is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).