Antisemitism, declared Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday, “has no place in Australian society.”
Ah, but it is there, Mr. Prime Minister. It is very much there.
On Friday night, the historic East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, a synagogue dating back to 1877, was targeted in an arson attack – its door set alight while worshipers gathered inside for Shabbat dinner. Shortly afterward, a pro-Palestinian mob converged on an Israeli-owned restaurant in Melbourne, throwing food and furniture at the restaurant and shattering one of its windows as terrorized diners were eating inside and outside.
A few hours after that, three cars were set alight in another part of the city, with graffiti sprayed on the cars and the wall containing what a police officer described as “inferences of antisemitism” in an area that “had been subject to some pro-Palestinian activity” recently.
All of this unfolded as Australian universities continued to debate the academic niceties of what does and does not constitute antisemitism. Is chanting “Death, death to the IDF” antisemitic? Presumably, some of those same institutions would say no – free speech, and all that. But that’s precisely what the vandals shouted as they stormed the Israeli-owned restaurant. The hate wasn’t abstract. It wasn’t theoretical. It was loud, physical, and unmistakably targeted.
Australia has a serious problem
Australia, home to some 120,000 Jews – a proud, Zionist community that includes the largest per capita percentage of Holocaust survivors in any country outside of Israel – has a serious problem.
Call it antisemitism, call it anti-Zionism, call it whatever you want. But when people are attacked while praying in synagogues or dining in Israeli restaurants, the result is the same: Jews are being violently targeted. That should set off alarm bells in Canberra. Instead, we’re still hearing platitudes.
Just how serious is this problem? Very. According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were 2,062 documented antisemitic incidents in Australia in 2024 alone – an astounding 316% increase from the year before. This is not a statistical blip. The trajectory is clear.
Friday’s attack came just months after another synagogue in Melbourne was set aflame, with no arrests made in that case. Since then, Australia has seen a Jewish childcare center set on fire; a trailer filled with explosives discovered alongside a list of Jewish targets; synagogues and Jewish schools defaced with antisemitic graffiti; Jewish businesses torched; and two nurses accused of threatening to kill Jewish patients.
The pattern is growing too obvious to ignore.
The prime minister and senior members of his left-wing government often say the right things. They issue statements, speak of unity, and affirm that antisemitism has no place in modern Australia. But if this is what “no place” looks like, then something is seriously amiss. Whatever policies are in place, whatever messages are being sent – they’re not working.
Words are important, but so is serious action
Words, as always, are important. But so is serious action.
Just last week, a federal court in Australia ruled that an Islamic preacher had violated the country’s racial vilification laws after widely circulating antisemitic, hate-filled sermons. The preacher and the organization responsible were ordered to remove the footage from social media. That ruling may have felt like a moral victory – a reminder that one can’t speak about Jews with complete impunity – but it’s not clear that merely ordering the removal of the offensive material will do much to stop the next preacher from peddling the same vile.
One of the more telling aspects of Friday’s rampage was the chanting of “Death, death to the IDF” – the same chant echoed by thousands at the Glastonbury music festival in the UK just a week earlier, led by the British rap duo Bob Vylan. What starts as a slogan on a stage morphs, far too easily, into a call to violence on the street. Words have power. They create atmospheres. They ignite fires.
Australia is now contending with those flames. The time for hand-wringing is long past. The Jewish community doesn’t need another empty reassurance that antisemitism “has no place.” It needs to see that message enforced – not just in press releases, but in penalties meted out to perpetrators of antisemitic acts, on campuses, in cultural spaces, and on the streets. Because when antisemitism is tolerated – or dressed up as political critique – it doesn’t stay in the abstract. It sets fires to synagogues. It vandalizes restaurants. And it kills.