‘We won’t be intimidated’: In Sydney’s eastern suburbs, there is fear, shock and defiance

Michelle Gold’s children peered out of the window during breakfast and saw police and cameras swarming into a nearby street. “Oh look, Mum, they’re filming a movie,” they said. Gold looked out.

It wasn’t a movie. The torched car was real. So was anti-Israel graffiti sprayed on a garage and fences. Gold and her children are Jewish, and this is the second time in as many months hostile messages have been sprayed near their home. Her children didn’t ask any more questions; she doesn’t know what she would have said if they had.

“I don’t want my children to know that down the road, this happened,” she told the Herald. “I don’t want them to feel fear. It upsets me that they have to worry about their own safety, or that they are aware of the security guards at the school or at the cinema, or that they’re even aware that there’s hatred towards Jews.”

Shock and fear were palpable among Sydney’s Jewish community on Wednesday as word spread about the latest in a series of incidents. Just last week, an arsonist firebombed a synagogue in Melbourne in what police later described as a likely terrorist attack. On Monday, graffiti sprayed at a construction site in Arncliffe referenced a key trope propagated by the genocidal Third Reich. It said “Hitler was right”.

Australia’s Jewish community has long employed specialist security, such as armed guards, threat monitors and surveillance cameras, to protect its schools, synagogues and community events against a backdrop of intense hostility in the Middle East.

That tension has risen sharply since the invasion of Israel and capture of Israeli hostages by terrorist group Hamas in October last year, and Israel’s resulting invasion of Gaza, in which tens of thousands of people have been killed.

The latest attack in Sydney, which Premier Chris Minns quickly described as antisemitic, took place in a cul-de-sac off Edgecliff Road, an area with a high Jewish population.

Two young men, who police estimated to be aged between 15 and 20, scrawled “Death 2 Israiel” and “Kill Israiel” [sic] across a garage door and fences (just last week, intelligence networks warned of an alarming rise in radicalised young people).

When they burnt the car they arrived in, which police believe was stolen, a neighbour saw the blaze and called police. Another resident tried to put the fire out and parts of the incident were captured on CCTV.

Sydney’s Jewish community awoke to the news.

“More burning cars and broken glass. Another act intended to terrorise us, drive us from our country and make our fellow Australians fearful of associating with us,” said Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin.

A visibly upset Kellie Sloane, member for Vaucluse, talks with President of Emanuel Synagogue Grant McCorquodale.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Local MP Kellie Sloane visited the street as forensic police were painting over the slogans. Two similar attacks within a few weeks, she said, felt like a “pattern of intimidation and hatred against a community that is trying to go about their everyday lives. People are both deeply upset and emotional, and there are people in tears that I’ve spoken to this morning.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the incident as “an outrage” and visited Sydney’s Jewish Museum on Wednesday afternoon to reassure the community of his support. Minns said it was a disgusting display of antisemitism. “This isn’t just a random act of destruction,” he said. “This was specifically designed to, in my view, incite hate and intimidate the Jewish community in Sydney.”

As the shock subsided, there was defiance. Yes, said Rabbi Rafael Kaiserblueth from the Emanuel synagogue, there was fear, anxiety, apprehension. “It’s a horrible thing when you don’t feel safe in your own community,” he said. But rather than let fear keep them away, people were coming to the synagogue in even greater numbers.

The clean-up begins on another house that was the target of graffiti.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“We want to believe, become and belong,” he said. “That’s not just a Jewish thing, that’s a basic human need.”

His comments were backed by Michelle Gold. “We’re not living in fear. We’re strong, proud people.”

Asked if the community was scared, Grant McCorquodale, the president of the Emanuel synagogue, would not be drawn.

“I don’t want to let the perpetrators get a sense they’ve hit their target,” he said. “Jews are very resilient, they are very strong, and they won’t be intimidated, and they will want to come together in prayer and support for everyone who has been threatened, Jewish or not Jewish. We will not be intimidated to change our expression and culture and continue to be the best Australians we can be.”

Rabbi Rafi Kaiserblueth has said the latest attacks would not keep people from attending the Emanuel synagogue in Woollahra.Credit: Janie Barrett

He welcomed extra police resources, but said he and other Jewish people “shouldn’t have to live behind a police wall”.

“I as an Australian citizen, I shouldn’t have to send my children to school, or go and pray for my private personal faith, behind security and armed guards.”

Extra police was a short-term answer, he said. The long-term one was to foster communication and understanding between polarised groups. “We have to find ways of talking, of finding connection and acceptance,” he said.

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