Australian cops say vandals who defaced Sydney synagogue also tried to burn it

Newtown synagogue, which was covered in swastikas on Saturday, was also target of attempted arson, says New South Wales premier, blasting ‘escalation’ in antisemitism

An image released by New South Wales Police showing suspects in an attack on a Sydney, Australia, synagogue on January 11, 2025. (NSW Police)
An image released by New South Wales Police showing suspects in an attack on a Sydney, Australia, synagogue on January 11, 2025. (NSW Police)

The premier of Australia’s New South Wales state, Chris Minns, said on Sunday that an attack on a Sydney-area synagogue on Saturday marked an escalation in antisemitic crime in the state, after police said the attack was attempted arson.

Australia has seen a series of antisemitic incidents in the last year, including graffiti on buildings and cars in Sydney, as well as an arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne that police ruled was terrorism.

In the latest incident, police were notified of antisemitic graffiti on a synagogue in the inner suburb of Newtown early on Saturday. An arson attempt was also made on the synagogue, police later said.

“This is an escalation in antisemitic crime in New South Wales. Police and the government remain very concerned that an accelerant may have been used,” Minns, the leader of Australia’s most populous state, said on Sunday in a televised media conference alongside state police commissioner Karen Webb.

“In the last 24 hours, these matters have now been taken over by counter-terrorism command,” Webb said, noting that a man and a woman, captured on video pouring a likely accelerant on the building but as-yet unidentified, were wanted by police for questioning.

A house in Sydney’s east, a hub of the city’s Jewish community, was also daubed with antisemitic graffiti, police said on Saturday, adding they were also probing offensive comments on a street poster in the suburb of Marrickville.

Swastikas daubed on a synagogue in Newtown on January 11, 2025 in Sydney, Australia (Screen grab via ABC News)

On Friday, a special police task force was set up to investigate an attack on the Southern Sydney Synagogue in the suburb of Allawah in the early hours of Friday morning.

Minns noted Sunday that police had published an image of the suspect in that attack, and urged anyone who recognized the person in question to come forward with information.

David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, said on Sunday he welcomed extra resources promised by the government to probe the recent incidents.

“The New South Wales government has also provided us with additional funding to enhance Jewish communal security,” Ossip added in a statement.

Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne also posted a video in which he said the Newtown synagogue was the subject of an attempted firebombing, expressing solidarity with the Jewish community “at such a difficult time.”

“This antisemitism has been building up for some time now, there’s been increasing reports across the last year and it needs to stop,” he added.

“We as a community need to stand strongly to say we oppose antisemitism and stand in solidarity with the Jewish community at this time,” he adds.

The Inner West includes neighborhoods just to the west of central Sydney, including Marrickville, where another suspected incident of antisemitic vandalism occurred over the weekend.

On Friday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, referring to the Southern Sydney Synagogue incident, said that there was “no place in Australia, our tolerant multicultural community, for this sort of criminal activity.”

Antisemitic graffiti daubed on the Southern Sydney Synagogue in Allawah, seen January 10, 2025 (Social media; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Australia has seen an increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents since the start of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, which began when the Palestinian terror group led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel in October 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Some Jewish organizations have said the government has not taken sufficient action in response.

Jewish leaders say prejudice against their community has reached unprecedented levels, with most incidents reported in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s largest cities, where 85 percent of the nation’s Jewish population live.

report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) found that Australian Jews experienced more than 2,000 anti-Jewish incidents over the past year, more than quadruple the number from the previous year.

A total of 2,062 incidents were recorded between October 2023 and September 2024, far more than the 495 incidents noted a year earlier. The total did not include antisemitic statements made on social media.

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