How a wave of antisemitic attacks roiled Australia and provoked claims of foreign influence A wave of antisemitic attacks has roiled Australia, with a dozen arrests for vandalizing or setting homes, schools, and synagogues on fire since October and hundreds more charged in just over a year with crimes targeting Jews.
In tense public debates echoing those in the United States and elsewhere, right-leaning lawmakers and some Jewish leaders — among them Peter Wertheim from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry — have accused pro-Palestinian demonstrators, particularly “progressives” and university students, he said, of fueling the crimes.
“But I think the real danger we see here with linking this spate of antisemitic incidents to the Palestine solidarity movement is that that sort of language breeds division, breeds anti-Palestinian racism, breeds Islamophobia and is also bad for Jews as well,” she said.
Jewish and Muslim organizations and hate researchers have recorded drastic spikes in hate-fueled incidents on both groups since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Antisemitic episodes in the two biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne — home to 85% of Australia’s Jewish population — have drawn the highest profile because they’re severe, unusual and public.
