‘Spewed Jew hatred’: Anti-Semitic incidents rise to 2062 as St Kilda Rabbi’s home targeted by vandals

Disturbing new statistics have secured Victoria’s reputation as the worst state for Jews in Australia, with some families creating an “exit strategy” if hatred continues to grow.

A Melbourne rabbi’s home has been vandalised amid a slew of disturbing ­attacks on Jews, with new figures revealing anti-Semitism continues to worsen.

Almost half of the 2062 – 905 – ­reported anti-Semitic incidents across the country in the past year have occurred in Victoria, according to the statistics, securing our reputation as the worst state for Jews in Australia.

The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal some Jewish parents are also moving their families to Israel or considering a “plan B” to leave Australia if incidents of hatred continue to grow.

Rabbi Effy Block’s St Kilda home was attacked while he was overseas last week, his wife and children waking to messages “Jews kill babies” and “Free Gaza” scrawled on their home and car.

St Kilda religious leader Rabbi Effy Block and his family outside their home which was vandalised on Tuesday November 26, 2024. Picture: Supplied

Anti-Semitic and pro-Palestinian graffiti was scrawled on the Block’s car. Picture: Supplied

‘Free Gaza’ drawn graffitied at the family’s front door. Picture: Supplied

Vandals wrote ‘Free Gaza’ on the front fence. Picture: Supplied

“These people found where we lived and they came into the gate and spewed this Jew hatred,” Rabbi Block said.

“Unfortunately this cycle of history is repeating itself. It’s been normalised in ­Victoria.”

His wife, who asked not to be named, has now moved to a friend’s place with the children while he’s away. “I was so shocked and it left me feeling very violated, but we will never stop being who we are,” she said.

The rabbi requested a security grant from the state government six months ago for the synagogue, where he and his family live.

A government spokesman, who condemned the­ ­attack as “disgusting”, told the Sunday Herald Sun Chabad St Kilda would receive funding for more security.

It comes as a shock report published by the nation’s peak Jewish body, The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, reveals rates of anti-Semitism against Australia’s 100,000 Jews have leapt a staggering 316 per cent since October 7, with 2062 incidents reported in the year ending September, compared with the previous year’s 495.

They included reports of Melbourne Jews being spat at, kicked, and told it’s “a pity the Nazis didn’t kill you”.

The attacks are recorded in the annual Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia 2024 which sources confidential complaints to Jewish community organisations, internal security and the ECAJ.

Jewish hatred has been on the rise since October 7 last year.

Graffiti reading ‘GAS ALL JEWS SCUMS’ discovered in Richmond in May.

The report logs the biggest spike of incidents in physical assaults, up fivefold in a year.

The circulation of anti-Semitic posters has risen 679 per cent, verbal abuse 230 per cent, and graffiti 214 per cent.

Anti-Semitism peaked in Australia the month after October 7 with 329 incidents.

Rabbi Block’s sister Chavi Block, who lives in Sydney, has watched her brother and her own husband face similar attacks.

Husband Ezra, 28, from Bondi, was forced to tape over the surname of his badge after a critically ill patient at a Sydney hospital refused treatment from him.

It happened before October 7 and several times since. “I was in an acute setting where the patient needed fluids to be administered intravenously and they saw my name, and I was wearing a kippah at work, when the patient protested, ‘I won’t be treated by you, you’re Jewish – get me someone else’,” he said. “Since October 7 it’s been worse,” said Ezra, who now works in an aged-care facility.

Teacher Chavi Block (right) and her husband Ezra. Picture: Damian Shaw

“I now cover up my last name on my work badge, but I keep my kippah.

“Recently I was treating a patient having a medical episode in the street and a man on motorbike came up and shouted ‘F--- you, Jew’.”

He also reported being spat at by labourers at a worksite.

Ms Block said most Australians were not “realising the bigger picture”.

“Nazi Germany did not happen overnight,” she said.

Melbourne Jewish dad David, the son of a German Holocaust survivor, said he was applying for a German passports in case the situation got worse in Australia for Jews.

“You’ve got to have a plan B, an exit strategy, as a Jewish person,” he said. “I never would have thought Germany would be our plan B. But there is clear vilification of Jewish people here and there is just no ­action.”

The state government introduced new hate speech laws into parliament last week to make it easier to jail people who vilify someone based on their race, religion, sexuality or disability.

But David said he doubted the new laws – which will not come into play until the second half of next year – would stamp out anti-Semitism.

Another dad, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he was moving to Israel with his family.

“My parents were Holocaust survivors and they loved Australia, but now I just don’t feel comfortable, I don’t feel part of the society,” he said.

He said constant protests, the chanting of anti-Semitic slogans, as well as the encampments at his daughter’s university this year, forced the family to make the decision.

“We just see so many behaviours that wouldn’t be tolerated if they were directed at other members of the community,” he said.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) Research director Julie Nathan said the statistics were just the ‘tip of the iceberg’. Picture: ECAJ

Executive Council of Australian Jewry research director Julie Nathan, who conducted the body’s 12th study, said the figures were the tip of the iceberg.

“There has never been anything like an annual increase of this magnitude,” she said.

LIST OF VICTORIAN ATTACKS AGAINST JEWS

October 11, 2023: Bomb threat of “We will blow your building up and cut your heads off soon. Gas a jew” sent via Instagram direct message to a synagogue.

October 11, 2023: Male occupants of a vehicle yelled “F — k … pigs … Jews … die …” at a rabbi and his eight-year-old son.

October 19, 2023: Male student performed a Hitler salute towards an identifiable Jewish individual in a classroom at Monash University, Clayton.

November 6, 2023: Phone call by a male who said “You are Jew dogs! Free Palestine! … Sieg Heil” to synagogue.

November 8, 2023: Male physically punched Jewish man outside St Kilda 7/11 while screaming “dirty rotten Jew c — t” and made multiple threats to kill.

November 10, 2023: Jewish man hit by a large rock and injured, requiring medical treatment, by an anti-Israel protester across the road from a Caulfield synagogue.

November 19, 2023: A person wearing a keffiyeh identified someone as Jewish, who was taking photos of anti-Israel stickers on the front of a McDonald’s on Swanston Street, and told them “It’s a pity that the Nazis didn’t kill you”.

December 7, 2023: Male approached an identifiably Jewish man and yelled at him “F — k Jews. F — k you Jew. We’re gonna get you all” several times in Balaclava.

January 6, 2024: Group of 10-15 males in St Kilda shouted “F — k the Jews” at several Jewish people, then threw shoes at them and spat at them.

January 19, 2024: Occupants of a vehicle threw eggs at an identifiably Jewish group walking home from Shabbat dinner in Balaclava.

March 22, 2024: Window of a synagogue was smashed with rocks.

May 19, 2024: 77-year-old Jewish woman spat on, threatened and kicked multiple times by protesters opposing a rally to counter anti-Semitism outside Victorian Parliament House.

June 19, 2024: Office windows of MP Josh Burns, who is Jewish, smashed and fires lit. “Zionism is Fascism” in red paint scrawled across front windows and horns drawn on poster of MP.

August 13, 2024: Graffiti of “GAS ALL F — king Jews” and “JEWS LOVE GAS”, on poles, in CBD.

August 14, 2024: Passenger of a vehicle did a “Heil Hitler” salute and yelled “Heil Hitler” towards an identifiably Jewish student.

September 1, 2024: A male in a group of eight to 10 teenage males yelled “F — king Jews!” at two Jewish boys, before one of the teens punched one of the Jewish boys in the face in Caulfield.

September 11, 2024: A male ranted about “Israel”, “Hitler”, that Jews should be in “concentration camps ”and that his “ancestors killed them all” at a bar in Malvern.