By Penry Buckley and Kayla Olaya
Co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Alex Ryvchin spoke to the media outside his former Dover Heights home hours after it was splashed with red paint, multiple cars were graffitied with antisemitic slurs and two were set on fire.
Here is an edited transcript of what he said in his speech and in answer to questions.
“As has been reported this morning, this was my family home for many years. It’s where my wife and I brought our youngest daughter home from the hospital. It’s where we hunkered down during the COVID pandemic, and when the school shut I attempted to homeschool my oldest daughter here.
“I want to first of all say thank you to everyone who’s reached out today, beginning with the premier, who called me multiple times this morning, the prime minister, the minister for home affairs, the deputy opposition leader and many Australians who conveyed their shock and horror and outrage at what transpired here.
“I want to thank the police and counterterrorism officers with whom I met with today as well. I have absolute confidence in the determination of the police to keep us safe as a society, and bring these people to justice, to again restore order to our communities.
“I can’t say with certainty whether the people who did this deliberately targeted me and my family but, as the premier said this morning, for them to hit this house, my former house, of all the houses and all the streets in this neighbourhood, would be one hell of a coincidence.
Alex Ryvchin visited his former home hours after the attack.Credit: James Brickwood
“To target someone’s home, someone’s sanctuary, someone’s family, to endanger the lives of the good and decent Australians that live around here, to light a fire when people are sleeping in their homes.
“There is an evil at work in this country, and we have to recognise that. There are people who are so consumed by hatred that they would seek to burn people because they disagree with their words, and how we respond to things like this will determine the future of our country. I firmly believe that.
“My family came to this country from the Soviet Union to escape antisemitism. This is the greatest and most fortunate country on earth, I honestly believe that. But if we allow these things to keep happening, they slowly define our national character and they change who we are as a people.
“I was born a Jew. My parents are Jewish, my wife is Jewish, my children are Jewish. It is the single greatest source of pride and strength in my life. Advocating for my people and my community these past 15 months has been the highest privilege I could imagine.
“And I can tell you that no fire, no vandalism, no paint, no threats, no intimidation, will stop me. I will continue to fulfil my duty to my country, my community and my people.
“To my own community, I want to say ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Don’t look upon this and feel intimidated. Don’t allow the cowards who did this to win. Be strong and have good courage and everything will be OK.
“And to my fellow Australians, I want to say, ‘Don’t be silent. Find your voice. Speak up. We’re not a nation of bystanders. What defines our national ethos is that we stand up for each other. We speak up for each other. We’re upstanders, not bystanders.’
“In this critical time, we need each of you to stand up and condemn this wickedness. Thank you very much.”
On his conversation with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
“He called me as soon as he was made aware of the situation, and I could tell from his voice that he was shaken. He was, on a personal level, deeply hurt by what had transpired.
“Despite any differences in policy that we’ve had over the previous years and months, the prime minister abhors this sort of thing, I’ve absolutely no doubt and, in time, we’ll discuss specific measures the community needs to keep everybody safe.
On the rise of antisemitism
“We’re less safe, we’re less free, and this is now becoming the norm. We’ve been saying for so long, things like this can’t be normalised. When we wake up every day and it’s another place being hit, it is the norm, and we have to wake up to the fact that, sadly, this is who we are.
“[The attack] shows that we’re in a very dangerous state, and it’s not a long step from what we’re seeing here to people being personally targeted and people being killed.
“We’re talking about what is happening to our fellow Australians here, and too many people are using their platforms either for complicity in silence or worse, to do harm.
“I hear from Jewish community leaders all over the world and they say, ‘What the hell is going on in your country?’
“Because we’ve always had a reputation as being a peaceful, just tolerant and multicultural society.”
On terrorism in Australia
“I think we have to determine the full facts. But if this was obviously an act of violence, as it is, and if it’s done to advance some political ideology, which I believe it is by the slogans that were daubed there, I think it meets any modern standard of terrorism.
“I think the people who have been doing these acts over and over again are driven by hatred. They’re driven by extreme political ideology, and they’re targeting civilians in what they’re doing. So by my account, they’re terrorists.
“When someone gets targeted in this way, in such a personal way, I think it’s an attempt to terrorise, to silence, to cow the Jewish community into, again, not being who we are, not being free to display our humanity, our pride in this country, our love of being Jewish. But they won’t prevail.
“It’s a home, it’s a sanctuary, it’s where we leave our work behind, and we be ourselves with our family, and it’s the place that we should be our safest. And so to see that that was targeted in this way, again, it’s not an attack merely on me, but it’s an attack on my wife, my children. It’s a deplorable thing.”
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