Police ramp up weekend security after masked men set fire to Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne

Jewish Australians are reeling after one of the country’s biggest synagogues was firebombed in an early morning attack condemned by political leaders as a “violent” and “heinous” act of anti-Semitism.

Police across the country will ramp up patrols and their presence in Jewish communities this weekend, after congregants already praying and studying were forced to flee the Adass Israel synagogue at Ripponlea, in Melbourne’s south-east, shortly after 4am on Friday.

Witnesses described seeing two masked men pour and spread accelerant before the fire engulfed the building, with authorities, including ASIO and Federal counter-terrorism police, hoping to retrieve and review crucial CCTV footage.

It took 60 firefighters 45 minutes to bring the blaze under control, but holy books and Torah scrolls were destroyed and parts of the synagogue – built by Holocaust survivors – “extensively” damaged with one person treated for burns.

Yumi Friedman, founder of Yumi’s Dips, was inside when he heard a “big bang on the door with a sledgehammer”.

“And I stopped for a second, and then suddenly heard another bang on the glass, and I saw glass fling. So I knew someone was out there trying to break in,” he told AAP.

The attack came just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office strongly criticised the Albanese Government for its retreating support for Israel and warned it could invite terrorism and anti-Semitism.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, condemning the attack as an act of “hate” and anti-Semitism that had put lives at risk, said the people involved would be caught and dealt “the full force of the law”.

“I have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. It has absolutely no place in Australia,” he said.

“The violence and intimidation and destruction at a place of worship is an outrage. This attack has risked lives, and it is clearly aimed at creating fear in the community.

“The people involved must be caught and face the full force of the law. This deliberate, unlawful attack goes against everything we are as Australians and everything we have worked so hard to build as a nation.”

Speaking on Friday afternoon, Mr Albanese would not be drawn on whether or not the attack constituted terrorism, but said he was being briefed by agencies.

Premier Jacinta Allan had earlier said police were not yet ruling anything out – including whether the attack was a form of “domestic terrorism” – but said there was no doubt it was anti-Semitism.

Asked what her message to the offenders is, Ms Allan said there were “many things” she’d like to say, but her focus was on the grieving Jewish community.

“There were people inside … who were praying, who were studying … practicing their faith and every Victorian of every faith deserves the right to do that safely, so my thoughts are more with the members of the community … not the people who bring hate,” she said.

She pledged $100,000 to rebuilding work at the synagogue that will “start today”, as well as an additional $1m in security grants for organisations around the state, before she cut her press conference short after a tense exchange with a member of the Jewish community.

There are concerns the attack will only embolden more acts of anti-Semitism – which has risen exponentially since October 7, 2023 – and violence.

Victoria Police have confirmed they will increase their presence around the area, and other sites of significance to the Jewish community across the state, over the weekend and in the weeks ahead.

NSW Police have also confirmed they would increase patrols of significant Jewish sites around Sydney and the state.

“Members of the public can expect to see a greater police presence in and around significant sites,” a spokesperson said.

The synagogue attack came just two weeks after Jewish cars were firebombed and homes were graffitied in Woollahra in Sydney.

In the wake of Friday’s attacks, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry on Friday urged the community not to hide out of fear of future attacks.

“I would say this to the Australian Jewish community and the Melbourne Jewish Community: don’t hide away, a message to our community is be Jewish, the police will have the increased presence over this weekend at our synagogues here in Melbourne. We will be looked after by the police as best they can,” President Daniel Aghion said outside the synagogue.

“The Jewish community has lived in fear for the last 14 months. This for us is just evidence of that fear.

“This is something that is the greatest manifestation of what we have been seeing and hearing in terms of threatening e-mails, threatening social media, threatening letters and all sorts of other material.”

Zionist federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the attack was another “shocking escalation of the hate that we have seen brazenly displayed on the streets of Melbourne every week for over a year”.

“No one should be surprised; this violent attack is a direct consequence of words turning into actions. Jew-hatred, left unchecked, endangers all Australians,” he said.

Jillian Segal, the special envoy for combatting anti-Semitism, said the synagogue attack was evidence of “anti-Israel sentiment bleeding into anti-Jewish sentiment”.

“I think the community is feeling ever more rattled by what is going on, I’m very concerned. Here is one major escalation, in terms of burning synagogues, which has resonance to what happened during the Holocaust,” she said.

“It’s all quite shocking... It’s really no longer just chanting in the streets but bringing it to Jewish communities and damaging … and threatening their safety, their security and their way of life, which is shocking and completely unacceptable in this country.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton decried the firebombing as “absolutely abhorrent” but lamented that it wasn’t totally unexpected.

“I want to pretend that this wasn’t expected, or it couldn’t be predicted, but I can’t do that to the Australian people,” he said.

“Everybody knew that anti-Semitism, that hatred and that vilification, that racism, was lurking beneath the surface, but what we’ve seen on our university campuses, what we’ve seen online, what we’ve seen against people of Jewish faith in the community, has been completely and utterly unacceptable.

He accused the Albanese Government of “directly condoning” the ostracization of Jewish Australians.

“The way they have been ostracised in our country and the way that has been condoned, directly, by the prime minister and others just has no place in our society,” he said.

Israeli Ambassador Amir Maimon urged the Albanese Government to take a stronger line on anti-Semitism, decrying the “heinous” attack as a “chilling reminder that anti-Semitism is not a relic of the past, but a growing threat that demands immediate action, not empty words”.

“Jewish people around the world are under siege, enduring relentless acts of intimidation and violence. Australia is not immune to this vile pandemic of Jew-hatred,” he said.

Mr Albanese said anti-Semitism had been “around for a long period of time”, but said his Government had taken strong action against the scourge, including by appointing Ms Segal, increasing security funding for Jewish organisations and banning hate symbols.

The Melbourne attack came after Australia voted on Wednesday at the UN in favour of Israel ending its “unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to chart an “irreversible pathway” towards a Palestinian state.

In its vote, Canberra departed from a 20-year position and away from the United States, but joined the United Kingdom, Canada and more than 150 other countries.

It prompted a stern rebuke from Israel, with Mr Netanyahu’s office telling The Australian the actions were rewards for terrorism.

“Awarding anti-Semitism and terrorism with a state in the heart of the Jewish homeland… will involve more terrorism and more anti-Semitic riots at campuses and city centres, including in Australia,” his office told the paper.

Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson, speaking at a bipartisan event outside the Ripponlea synagogue with Labor MP Josh Burns, said the bilateral relationship with Israel demanded protection.

“I’m very concerned about the state of bilateral affairs when it comes to former ministers of Israeli governments being blocked from coming to our country, when it comes to our votes at the United Nations, I think that has damaged that relationship. It’s an important relationship, and we should be stewarding it and protecting it and not trashing it,” he said.

Mr Maimon said Israel was “disappointed” after Australia switched its longstanding stance, but hosed down suggestions the relationship had been irreversibly damaged.

Mr Albanese said with the exception of the US, all of the Five Eyes partners had voted with Australia.

“It’s exactly the same way that the Howard Government voted for a long period of time,” he said.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said Australia remains a “close friend” of Israel.

“We don’t see that there is any change in our friendship, our relationship, our support for Israel, nor is there any change in our support for pursuing a two-state solution that’s been the bipartisan policy of our nation for decades, and the way in which we vote in the United Nations seeks to give expression to that,” Mr Marles said.