Survey: Antisemitic incidents in Australia down in 2025 from record high, still ‘unprecedentedly high’

The number of antisemitic incidents across Australia declined over the past year from the record high level recorded in the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, but remains at “unprecedentedly high levels,” a new report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry says.

ECAJ recorded 1,654 incidents during the 12-month period spanning October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025, about three times the annual average recorded in the decade prior to the October 7 massacre. That was fewer, however, than the 2,062 incidents recorded a year earlier, immediately following the attack.

Verbal abuse remained the most frequent type of incident, with 621 incidents, or 38% of the total. The number of physical assaults dropped by 63% from the previous year, but vandalism increased by 14%, the report shows.

Over the past year, Jews in Australia have seen synagogues, schools and homes firebombed, two nurses threatening to kill Jewish patients in their hospital, and the discovery of a trailer filled with explosives said to have been intended to cause a mass-casualty event at a Sydney synagogue.

The country’s recent decision to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September has aggravated a growing sense of alienation among the country’s 120,000-strong Jewish community and sparked a sharp war of words between Albanese’s government and Israeli officials.

In its report, ECAJ notes a marked increase in graffiti calling to kill Jews as a direct imperative, in contrast to previous messaging that it saw as an expression of sentiment rather than a call to action.