Before dawn on Friday morning in the quiet of a Melbourne synagogue, Yumi Friedman was studying religious texts when what sounded like a sledgehammer ripped through his sanctuary.
Within seconds, the Adass Israel synagogue congressional member saw glass flying, and he jumped from his seat, ran from the building and through a back lane to his nearby shop.
Yumi Friedman (centre) was inside the synagogue when the building was firebombed.Credit: Arsineh Houspian.
One of his workers called police, and Friedman returned to the synagogue, wary, when the smell of smoke hit him.
He tried the door and burnt his hand. A small fire in the synagogue in Ripponlea, in Melbourne’s south-east, soon engulfed the building after masked arsonists threw in accelerant and set it alight.
“The person who saw them [described them], and he saw they had big things of petrol,” Friedman told this masthead.
“There was someone else with me, but he left five minutes before I left.”
The attack, shortly after 4am, sent shockwaves rippling through Melbourne’s Jewish community as members of the Adass congregation began arriving for what would normally be morning prayer.
Firefighters alerted journalists to the blaze about 5.30am and called a press conference about an hour later, prompting media to scramble to the scene.
After 7am, dozens of congregational members were out the front of the synagogue. One of its buildings on Glen Eira Avenue appeared charred and gutted, and concern quickly spread about the irreplaceable, expensive Torah scrolls stored inside.
The handwritten ink and parchment scrolls contain the complete text of the Hebrew Bible, the five books of Moses, and are unfurled to be read before the congregation several times a week.
The scrolls take more than a year for trained scribes to copy, and some of those housed at Adass are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, having been passed down by Holocaust survivors to their children and grandchildren.
Within hours of the blaze – which took firefighters about 40 minutes to control – Jewish leaders and politicians began visiting the scene. Deputy state Liberal leader David Southwick, who is Jewish, said he was about to board a plane to Sydney when he heard about the fire in his electorate and turned back.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion and Jewish Community Council of Victoria chief executive Naomi Levin held a press conference to condemn the attack and its timing, as it happened before the Sabbath on Friday evening.
Levin said parents dropping their children at Jewish schools on Friday morning called her and asked why they had bolstered security.
“So they hadn’t been able to tune into the news, but for them to have to discover that the security across our community has been increased because of this attack, and to need to explain that to their young children, is gutting for our communities,” Levin said.
“It’s incredibly traumatic what’s been happening, not just for the people of this synagogue, but for the broader Jewish community.”
Sadness swelled into anger at police and political press conferences.
A community member told Detective Inspector Chris Murray, of the arson squad: “People call you, you don’t want to answer them.”
Premier Jacinta Allan (centre) holds a press conference as community members listen.Credit: Arsineh Houspian
Murray responded: “I take umbrage with that, sir. I think we do.”
Federal Labor MP Josh Burns, whose Macnamara electorate takes in Ripponlea and who is Jewish, met with those gathered outside.
Opposition Leader John Pesutto and Premier Jacinta Allan also held separate press conferences.
Allan promised $100,000 to help rebuild the synagogue, but it wasn’t enough to tamp down the anger among those assembled. Her press conference was cut short when a heckler accused Allan of “losing control” of the situation.
Premier Jacinta Allan with community members outside the synagogue.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
“Why should we trust that you’re going to keep the [Jewish community] safe when you’ve failed for a year and a half?” the heckler asked.
About lunchtime, members of the Adass congregation gathered outside a door to the synagogue on Oak Grove. Police allowed a couple of members inside, and they hauled out items that survived the blaze.
As items were brought out, congregational members grasped their personal prayer items and held them close to their chests. Then, some of the Torah scrolls appeared.
Some people kissed the scrolls before they loaded them into a car. They laid them down delicately and covered them in shawls. They are precious, and were to be used at a relocated Sabbath on Friday night.
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