DVIR ABRAMOVICH: Three months on, no one has been brought to justice for Adass Synagogue terror attack

The fire came in the early hours of the morning. The attack was planned, deliberate, and ruthless. The Adass Synagogue, firebombed—not in some distant land, not in the pages of history, but here. In Melbourne. In Australia.

Three months later, the ash has settled, but something far darker remains. No arrests. No justice. Not a single person has been held accountable. A synagogue was firebombed in the middle of a major city, and after all the promises, the condemnations, the outrage —nothing.

The flames did not die out that morning. They spread, unseen, through every Jewish home. In the anxious looks exchanged in supermarkets. In the sinking feeling of reading the news. In the unspoken dread that this was not an isolated act, but a sign of where things are heading.

Because that’s what this was. A warning.

A firebombed synagogue is not just an act of destruction. It is a line in the sand. A test of what this country will tolerate. A test it is failing.

And what has been the answer?

Synagogues reinforcing their buildings, adding more security patrols. Schools reviewing safety protocols. Parents asking if their children’s uniforms make them a target. A Jewish teacher wondering if it’s safer not to mention their background. The growing fear that being visibly Jewish now comes with a risk.

But where is the justice?

Where are the arrests?

Where is the handcuffed suspect being walked into court?

No criminal can outrun the truth. I have faith that Victoria Police will find them and drag them before the court to face the full force of the law.

There are those who say this was an isolated incident. That Jewish Australians should not feel afraid.

But reality tells a different story.

This did not happen in a vacuum. It happened after months of escalating hate. After Jewish-owned businesses were defaced. After threats against Jewish students forced them to reconsider where they sit, what they say, and who they talk to. After community leaders were flooded with hateful. Messages.

It happened after Australian Jews were told, over and over, that their pain did not matter. That their fear was an exaggeration. That their calls for action were too inconvenient, too political, too much.

And now, after all that, the Adass Synagogue was firebombed.

Tell us again how this is an anomaly.

Tell us again that history is not repeating.

Because history remembers the moments when a society chose to look away. When an attack like this was dismissed as a one-off, rather than recognised as a warning. When fear took root, and no one had the courage to stop it.

Three months have passed. Not one person has been arrested. Not one person has been charged. The people who did this are still out there, walking free, knowing they got away with it.

What kind of message does that send?

The fire at the Adass Synagogue was not the end. It was the beginning of a new, terrifying reality.

And if Australia does not wake up now, it will soon find itself asking a different question.

Not, how did we get here?

But, why didn’t we stop it when we still had the chance?

But let’s be clear: this will not stop here.

Hate does not disappear. It grows. It feeds off silence, off excuses, off the refusal to confront it head-on. It starts with slurs and slogans, with chants in the streets, with veiled threats disguised as politics. But it never stops there. It never has.

It turns into shattered glass. Into names etched in red on hit lists passed around in encrypted chats. Into violence, real and raw, on streets once thought safe.

And now, it has turned into a synagogue set alight in the middle of Melbourne.

Australia is not special. Australia is not different.

A country is not judged by its slogans, its anthem, or the myths it tells itself. It is judged by what it allows. By what it tolerates. By what it is willing to excuse, explain away, or pretend does not exist.

A synagogue has already burned. A warning has already been sent.

And after three months, the people who did this are still free.

The only thing left to decide is whether this country has the will to fight back.

Or whether it will stand still, pretending it does not see the next match being struck.

Dr Dvir Abramovich is chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission