A Jewish childcare center in Sydney was set on fire early Tuesday morning and anti-Semitic graffiti was painted on its walls, causing extensive property damage. The attack occurred around 1 a.m. in the east of the city, near a Jewish school and a synagogue. “It’s shocking. How far can they go?” local resident Nick Klein told the Guardian. “There is no doubt that this is a racial crime.”
Alex Ryvchin, a leader in the Australian Jewish community, called the burning of a children’s center “an act of unimaginable depravity.” “Families will have to check whether it is safe to send their children to places that should be the safest: places of worship, homes and now daycares,” he stressed.
Surveillance camera footage shows two masked men dressed in black, one pouring a flammable product and lighting it, while the other spray-painted the exterior walls in red. This attack comes a few days after a similar incident where four cars were set on fire.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns promised the perpetrators would be caught: “The kind of people who attack a fellow Australian they don’t know because of their race or religion is totally disgusting and these bastards will be arrested by the police.”
-Faced with the increase in anti-Semitic incidents since October 7, the Australian Federal Police created a special force to investigate threats and violence against the Jewish community. A first 44-year-old suspect was indicted last week for making death threats against members of a Jewish organization.
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