Jews’ nightmare with no end: two years of hate, violence as anti-Semitism takes root
Australian Jews have endured 1654 anti-Semitic incidents in the past year as hate attacks reach five times pre-October 7 levels.
Australian Jews have suffered a second terrifying year of unprecedented anti-Semitism, with the number of assaults, abuse, vandalism and hate messages almost five times the level before the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023 and the war in Gaza.
The shameful figures support the fears expressed by the Jewish community that anti-Semitism is being normalised in Australia, with hate now ingrained among certain groups of Australians, including the political far Left and far Right. The past 12 months have included the most serious anti-Semitic attacks so far, including the torching of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne – a year ago this week – and Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney, attacks that ASIO has revealed to have been masterminded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The report – compiled by Julie Nathan, research director of the nation’s peak Jewish body, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, and to be released on Wednesday – comes with a grim warning that anti-Jewish racism “has left the fringes of society and become part of the mainstream”.
“It is normalised and allowed to fester and spread, gaining ground at universities, in arts and culture spaces, in the health sector, in the workplace and elsewhere. In such an environment, Jews have legitimate concerns for their physical safety and future in Australia,” ECAJ said in its Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia in 2025.
The figures show there were 1654 anti-Jewish incidents recorded from 1 October, 2024, to September 30, 2025, compared with an average across the 10 years before October 2023 of just 342. Although this overall figure is down slightly from the 2062 recorded in the previous 12 months, arson and vandalism reached record levels while the level of verbal abuse remained at unprecedented highs.
Chayim Klein, a member of the Adass whose synagogue in Melbourne’s Ripponlea was burned down, says anti-Semitism continue to haunt his community. “It has been an incredibly trying and difficult year. The (Synagogue) fire didn’t just damage a building, it disrupted the heart of our community life, our routine and our sense of security’ Mr Klein told The Australian. “Unfortunately anti-Semitism remains a part of our everyday reality. We’ve had gutless individuals driving past and shouting vulgar slurs, attempting to intimate us. At the same time we’ve also been uplifted by the tremendous love of support shown by many ordinary Australians.’
The ECAJ report showed Victoria and NSW were the hotbeds of anti-Semitism, with 738 incidents recorded in Victoria and 662 in NSW followed by Western Australia (108), Queensland (72), ACT (50), South Australia (17), Tasmania (five), and Northern Territory (two).
The report documents physical violence towards Jews ranging from threats at knifepoint to the firing of flaming projectiles, from being pushed off bikes to scratching and physical assault.
The past 12 months included some of the most serious anti-Semitic attacks, also including the vandal attack on the former Sydney home of ECAJ co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin, the defacing of two Sydney synagogues and other instances of cars set on fire with anti-Semitic graffiti.
In August, when ASIO revealed that Iran was masterminding some anti-Semitism attacks in Australia using local criminal networks, the Albanese government expelled the Iranian ambassador from Australia, proscribed the IRGC as a terrorist organisation and closed Australia’s embassy in Tehran. “Australian Jews were targeted in order to further the political purposes of the Iranian regime,” ECAJ said.
“That regime clearly sees its war of annihilation against Israel as a war against the entire Jewish people, even if the regime’s apologists in Australia and elsewhere are too obtuse or dishonest to acknowledge it.
“Although the federal government took strong and welcome action against the Iranian regime by expelling the Iranian ambassador in Australia and proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, the threat to the Jewish community from foreign and local actors is ongoing.”
In the past 12 months, ECAJ reported 621 cases of verbal abuse of Jews, 24 of physical assault, 33 of vandalism and almost 1000 cases of hate messages and anti-Semitic graffiti and posters.
ECAJ says anti-Semitism was fuelled through the weekly protests in the CBDs of Melbourne, Sydney and other cities, which routinely included calls for the end of Israel and false analogies between Nazism and Zionism.
“It is the perpetrators of such discourse who cynically conflate ostensible ‘anti-Zionism’ with anti-Semitism, not those who call them out,” ECAJ said in its report. “Although it might only be a few individuals who publicly express those views, it has been given a certain street credibility and legitimacy. When undermining the wellbeing of Jews, and their security, anti-Jewish racism will continue to worsen.”
ECAJ warned that political extremes in Australia were becoming “more emboldened and increasingly converging in one area – their common hatred of Jews/Zionists”.
“There is nothing new about anti-Semitism emanating from neo-Nazis, the anti-Israel Left or Islamists,” it said. “What is new is the increasing ideological alignment between them and, at least in the case of Islamists and those on the hard Left, growing co-operation.”
The report takes aim at attempts by the anti-Israel movement to undermine initiatives to counter anti-Semitism and to belittle and mock reports of rising anti-Semitism. “When Jewish organisations raise the issue of anti-Jewish racism, or produce reports or hold events, their concerns are belittled and mocked, and even twisted to claim that it is all fabricated, that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist (except perhaps on the extreme Right), and that it is all part of the ‘Zionist’ arsenal to defend Israel,” ECAJ said.
“The trail of burnt and damaged synagogues, schools and other Jewish institutions and the damaged lives that have followed in their wake stand as a mute indictment of those who deny or seek to minimise the magnitude of the cancer of anti-Semitism in our midst.”
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