A synagogue in Sydney has been vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti in a disturbing escalation of hate crimes, just one day after another synagogue in New South Wales was targeted.
Police reports had said vandals spray-painted the entrance of an inner-city synagogue with red swastikas early Saturday morning. Anti-Jewish slurs also appeared on a house in the affluent eastern suburbs of Sydney. The incident occurred in the wake of an attack that targeted the Southern Sydney Synagogue in Allawah, during the predawn hours of Friday. In the wake of that incident, the establishment of a special police task force had taken place due to the shocking trend.
“There is no place in Australia, our tolerant multicultural community, for this sort of criminal activity,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, referring to the previous attack on the Southern Sydney Synagogue. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns also echoed these sentiments, saying such acts are meant to divide the community and described them as “monstrous and appalling.”
Anti-Semitic incidents in Australia have risen in the past year, according to reports of graffiti on buildings and vehicles in Sydney and an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue that police are treating as terrorism. After the December attack in Melbourne, the Australian government established a federal task force to combat anti-Semitism.
The rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents coincided with an escalation of tension after an October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military action in Gaza. Some Jewish groups have criticized the government for not doing more in the face of the growing threat.
These incidents also strained Australia’s diplomatic relations with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Albanese’s Labor Party of fostering such attacks through its “anti-Israel” policies. “Unfortunately, this criminal act cannot be separated from the anti-Israel spirit blowing from the Labor government in Australia,” Netanyahu said on social media in December, referring to the synagogue arson.
In response, Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who is Jewish, strongly denied the suggestion that the government’s position has emboldened such attacks. “Australia remains a close friend of Israel, as we have been since the Labor government recognised the state of Israel when it was created by the United Nations,” Dreyfus said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
