Australia probing whether ‘foreign actors’ behind antisemitic surge, after daycare torched

Jewish community leader say officials finally taking issue seriously after months of mounting attacks, but many skeptical, with special operation netting only single arrest so far

Police stand near houses vandalized with anti-Israel slogans in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra, Australia, December 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
Police stand near houses vandalized with anti-Israel slogans in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra, Australia, December 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Police in Australia believe a string of antisemitic attacks, including the torching of a daycare center in Sydney early Tuesday morning, may be coordinated by foreign actors, as authorities struggle to contain the scourge.

Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said Tuesday that a special anti-terror operation set up to combat serious antisemitic crimes was actively investigating 15 serious allegations, though only a single person has been arrested thus far. There have also been dozens of arrests by local police in Victoria and New South Wales, the Australian government said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a snap meeting of the national cabinet Tuesday to discuss the issue following the daycare center attack, a move opposition parties and Jewish community leaders have been demanding for weeks. Officials there agreed to establish a national database to track antisemitic incidents and behaviors in order to better coordinate responses across different departments and states.

Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, said Australia’s political leadership was finally starting to understand the severity of the problem after failing to properly address mounting anti-Jewish incidents for over a year, much of it thought tied to Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.

Attacks have included anti-Jewish and anti-Israel graffiti smeared on properties or vehicles in areas with large Jewish populations, and arson attacks on synagogues in Sydney and Melbourne.

The latest attack occurred just before 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning when a childcare center adjacent to a synagogue in the Sydney neighborhood of Maroubra was firebombed and graffitied with the message “Fuck the Jews.” The building was unoccupied at the time and there were no reports of injuries.

A daycare center is set on fire in Sydney Australia with antisemitic graffiti next to it on January 21, 2025 (Screencapture/X)

Two other synagogues in and around Sydney were vandalized with hate messages earlier this month and police say the assailants attempted to firebomb one of the buildings.

And last week, a Sydney home previously owned by senior Jewish community leader Alex Ryvchin was vandalized, with two cars set on fire.

Ryvchin said authorities believed he had been deliberately targeted. “Thank God they didn’t have my current address,” he said. “This is what’s happening in Australia now.”

The attacks have persisted despite officials, including Albanese, promising tough action following an arson attack that gutted the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December.

This handout photo taken and released by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on December 10, 2024, shows Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (C) and members of the local Jewish community visiting the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 10, 2024, after it was set ablaze on December 6. (Handout / DEPARTMENT OF PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET / AFP)

“This is now a pattern, and police are pretty confident now that this is coordinated, Leibler said. “The country’s political leadership is beginning to realize that this is serious.”

In a statement Tuesday, Kershaw said Australian Federal Police were investigating the possibility that overseas actors were paying local criminals to carry out attacks against the Jewish community and whether young people who had been radicalized online were behind the incidents.

Kershaw noted that payments may have been made in cryptocurrency, making it harder to track.

The pattern of foreign actors paying locals — usually via cryptocurrency — to carry out acts of petty vandalism and setting cars on fire could dovetail with a similar phenomenon in Israel. According to the Shin Bet security agency, dozens of Israelis have been arrested in recent months for accepting money from figures in Iran to graffiti cars and walls with anti-Israel or pro-Iran messages, and to torch cars.

This image released by police on December 30, 2024, shows a car allegedly set on fire by Alexander Granovsky, a civilian recruited by ‘foreign elements.’ The graffiti on the car reads ‘Children of Ruhollah.’ (Israel Police)

A similar phenomenon has also been reported in Europe, with Russia accused of recruiting locals to commit arson attacks and other acts of sabotage in a bid to undermine support for Ukraine.

Australian officials did not elaborate on the avenue of investigation, but Kershaw said the antisemitic attacks had been brought up with the Five Eyes, a high profile intelligence sharing network between Australia, the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

“Regardless, it all points to the same motivation: demonising and intimidating the Jewish community,” he said in the statement, promising that more suspects would be charged as more evidence is gathered.

Messages and flowers are seen attached to the fence at the Adass Israel Synagogue in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea on December 9, 2024. (Martin KEEP / AFP)

Many in Australia’s Jewish community of some 120,000 are angry at the government over its inability to stem the attacks until now and skeptical that much will change.

“The government seems to be well-intentioned and genuinely wants to address antisemitism, but they are playing catch-up from its failure to speak out strongly and take these actions more than a year ago,” Leibler said, adding that upcoming federal elections in May had helped put pressure on the government to take stronger steps.

Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia (Courtesy)

Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, lamented that the attacks had “become the new normal for Australia.”

“It has become part of who we are as a country, and I can’t comprehend how we have gotten to this point,” he said.

Though the attacks have generally not caused serious bodily harm, he noted that the vandals were literally playing with fire, as with the torching of cars outside his old home in Sydney, which had threatened the non-Jewish family that now lives in there.

A car is daubed with the slur ‘Fuck the Jews’ in Sydney’s Dover Heights in Australia, January 17, 2025 (Sky News screenshot; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

“Two cars were set alight, and the flames were sky-high and could have easily spread to the house itself,” he said. “This was at 4 a.m., when families were sleeping, and our old next-door neighbor, a man in his 80s, went out and starting battling the flames with his garden hose. He could have been killed.”

He noted that a car belonging to a Jewish couple next door had been daubed with paint reading “Fuck the Jews” on one side and “Fuck Israel” on the other.

“I think that’s quite poetic, like two sides of the same coin,” Ryvchin quipped.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Jillian Segal (L) stands next to co-CEO Alex Ryvchin as he speaks during a media conference in Sydney on October 9, 2023. (DAVID GRAY / AFP)

To tackle the incidents, Australia’s Federal Police in December launched Special Operation Avalite, tasking 21 counter-terrorism police and experts to investigate threats against the Australian Jewish community.

Kershaw said the operation had received 166 reports, but many were duplicates, were under investigation by local authorities, or were not criminal, leaving 15 allegations for the taskforce to probe.

An antisemitic slogan found sprayed on the side of a car in the suburb of Queen’s Park, in Sydney, January 6, 2025. (AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi)

Ryvchin said the operation had yet to prove itself effective.

“You can only judge a program like that by its outcomes, such as preventing or disrupting attacks or arresting those who commit them,” he said. “None of these are being achieved. We aren’t seeing any thwarted attacks, and there are still no arrests on any of the major attacks.”

On Thursday, police announced that they had charged a suspect under Avalite for the first time, accusing a 44-year-old man from the Sydney suburb of Blacktown of making death threats against a Jewish organization online.

“I have no doubt that the police are doing everything they can, and I know that the state and federal governments have thrown a lot of resources behind us,” Ryvchin said. “But the results aren’t there yet, because we’re dealing with a very complex problem that doesn’t have a single solution. That’s why we’re calling for this national cabinet to come up with a comprehensive, multifaceted approach, because our country is disappearing.”

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