Following the arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne on Friday, the local Jewish community will hold a solidarity rally on Sunday to “come together to fight against hatred and show solidarity.”
For security reasons, the location of the event scheduled for 10:30 a.m. was only communicated to people who confirmed their presence.
“This gathering is an opportunity to unite, reflect and reaffirm our shared commitment to resilience and solidarity within our community,” reads the notice from J-United, a network of Jewish activists.
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“Together, we send a strong message: any attack on one of us is an attack on all, and hatred has no place in our community. Together we are stronger. »
Investigators have not yet identified a motive, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it an anti-Semitic act.
“Any attack on a synagogue is, in my opinion, an act of anti-Semitism by definition,” Albanese said.
Damage to the Adass Israel Synagogue in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea on December 6, 2024. (Screenshot from YouTube; used under section 27a of the Copyright Act)
“This deliberate and illegal attack is contrary to everything we stand for as Australians and everything we work so hard for as a nation. »
The Australian Federal Police will provide assistance to law enforcement in the state of Victoria as part of the investigation, the head of government also announced.
Authorities have stepped up patrols and are working to locate those responsible.
Benjamin Klein, a member of the synagogue’s board of trustees, reported that several people were praying inside when the fire broke out.
-Liquid was poured inside the synagogue to set it on fire, he added. “If this had happened an hour later, there would have been hundreds of people inside,” Klein continued, adding that the fire had destroyed religious works and furniture.
Klein said the synagogue had increased its security over the past 12 months due to security concerns, without providing further details.
Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, has expressed concern over growing anti-Israel protests. He reported that around 40 activists organized a rally last Wednesday in front of the Great Synagogue in Sydney, demanding sanctions against Israel. Protesters reportedly prevented those inside from leaving the synagogue for approximately three hours.
The Zionist Federation of Australia also denounced the atmosphere fueled by anti-Israel demonstrations. Its president, Jeremy Leibler, said in a statement Friday that the synagogue attack
“represents a shocking new escalation of the hatred openly displayed on the streets of Melbourne every week for over a year.”
Members of the Jewish community remove sacred scrolls from the burned Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne, December 6, 2024. (Credit: Tania Lee/AFP)
The Australian government defended its record on combatting anti-Semitism on Saturday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the arson attack on Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue on what he described as the “anti-Semitism stance.” -Radical Israel” from Canberra.
The Australian Jewish Association and Australian Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had also linked the arson to what they described as the Albanese government’s failure to stand with Israel.
Members of the Jewish community also shouted down Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan as she spoke to Adass Israel on Friday, accusing her of losing control of the state and allowing threats to the state to proliferate. against the Jews. Allan was forced to interrupt her press conference due to the commotion.
The arson came as Australia’s Jewish community, which numbers around 100,000, reported a four-fold increase in anti-Semitic acts amid the war in Gaza, sparked by the pogrom carried out by the Palestinian terror group Hamas on October 7, 2023, when some 6,000 Gazans including 3,800 Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel, killing more of 1,200 people, mostly civilians, kidnapped 251 hostages of all ages – committing numerous atrocities and perpetrating sexual violence on a large scale.
According to the Executive Council of Australian Jews, physical attacks against Jews in the country increased from eleven in 2023 to sixty-five in 2024.
