On Sunday, a tragic terrorist attack targeted Australian Jews who were celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney, marking a grim event that the nation’s small yet historically significant Jewish community had feared. This attack comes in the wake of increasing antisemitic incidents, which have surged since the deadly assault by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has strongly denounced the attack, describing it as “a targeted assault on Jewish Australians during Hanukkah’s first day.” However, critics argue that his Labor government has not adequately addressed the worrying rise in antisemitic activities across the nation.
Avi Yemini, a reporter for Rebel News Australia who has been chronicling these attacks, shared with Fox News Digital that soon after the October 7 attack by Hamas, groups of extremists began openly targeting Jews in Australia. He recounted incidents like the gathering outside the Sydney Opera House where chants of “Where’s the Jews?” were heard. According to Yemini, the situation has since escalated to include firebombings of synagogues and childcare centers, with government responses being insufficient. He warned that the recent violent incident in Bondi seemed inevitable under these circumstances and might not be the last.
Antisemitic graffiti has also appeared in Jewish neighborhoods, such as one in Melbourne, highlighting the severity of the situation. (Image credit: Executive Council of Australian Jewry)
Yemini criticized the Australian Labor government, suggesting that its lack of decisive action is partly due to its political dependence on votes from the Islamic community. He believes this inaction has led many Australian Jews to a harsh realization that their safety can no longer be assured in the country as it once was. As a result, some are contemplating relocating to Israel.
In the midst of these tensions, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was seen engaging with the community during a visit to the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, as depicted in a photograph where he navigates through a crowd. (Image credit: Joel Carrett/AAP Image via AP)
Adding to the anger, Australia’s Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faced criticism for failing to note in an earlier statement posted on X that the deadly attack was directed at Jewish Australians.
Following the attack, a reporter confronted Albanese with concerns about his government’s response to antisemitism, citing his government’s recognition of a Palestinian state, Labor ministers attacking the Israeli government and refusing to visit the sites of the Oct. 7 massacres, and the simultaneous appointment of special envoys for Islamophobia and antisemitism. The reporter asked Albanese whether his government had taken antisemitism seriously.
Members of the Synagogue recover items from the Adass Israel Synagogue on Dec. 6, 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. An arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne forced congregants to flee as flames engulfed the building early on Friday morning. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the incident as an antisemitic act, emphasizing that such violence at a place of worship is unacceptable in Australia. (Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)
“Yes, we have taken it seriously,” Albanese replied. “And we’ve continued to act. We’ve continued to work with Jewish community leaders. We’ve continued to take all the advice from the security agencies to put in place special measures, and we will continue to do so.”
Albanese’s press office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment about frustrations regarding the prime minister’s response to the mass shooting attack.
An anti-Israel protestor’s high-vis jacket during a march against the Jewish state by the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia. Aug. 2025. (Ayush Kumar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) recently documented 1,654 anti-Jewish incidents across Australia between 1 Oct, 2024 and 30 Sept. 2025, “in addition to 2,062 incidents nationwide the year before.”
It also noted, “antisemitic incidents in Australia remain at historically high levels, at almost five times the average annual number before Oct. 7, 2023. . . . While there has been a marginal reduction from last year’s all-time high, the most serious categories of incidents, including arson attacks against synagogues, pre‑schools and other Jewish institutions, are higher than in any previous year on record.”
Some of the more shocking incidents to hit Australia’s Jewish community since Oct. 7, 2023, up until Sunday’s terror attack include:
Melbourne
Masked individuals setting a fire in Ripponlea’s Adass Israel Synagogue while congregants said morning prayers. The fire caused widespread damage and injured one worshipper.
Sydney:
Sydney’s Allawah Synagogue was tagged with swastika graffiti. The following day, the Newtown Synagogue, also in Sydney, was similarly defaced. The week prior, a car in Sydney had been spray-painted with an antisemitic phrase.
Major property damage was inflicted on a childcare center near a Jewish school and synagogue in Sydney during an arson attack. Antisemitic graffiti was found inside.
A car was set on fire in a Jewish community in Sydney, and as many as seven homes in the area were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti.
Two healthcare workers in Sydney speaking on the social platform Chatrouletka with an Israeli man said that they would refuse treatment to Israeli patients and had previously killed Israeli patients.
Police escort anti-Israeli protesters outside an Israeli restaurant Miznon on Hardware Lane in Melbourne, Friday, July 4, 2025. Families were terrified as one of Australia’s oldest synagogues was targeted by arsonists and protesters shouted chants outside an Israeli restaurant. (AAP Image/Josh Stanyer/ via Reuters)
Gideon Sa’ar, the foreign minister of Israel, expressed his sorrow to his Australian counterpart Penny Wong by phone. On X on Sunday, Sa’ar said that he told Australia’s foreign minister that “security for the Jewish community in Australia will be achieved only through a real change in the public atmosphere. Calls such as ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine Will be Free,’ and ‘Death to the IDF’ are not legitimate, are not part of freedom of speech, and inevitably lead to what we witnessed today. The Australian government must take strong action against the use of these antisemitic calls.”
Populist Australian Sen. Pauline Hanson said on X that Albanese “never heeded the warning signs, including the weekly antisemitic protests across our nation, hate speech from certain religious clerics, our obnoxious universities and probable terrorist alert.” Hanson said the Jewish community in Australia has “the same right to live in peace and harmony as all Australians,” and called on authorities to “be honest when revealing the identities and backgrounds of these murderers.”
