After last Sunday’s terror attack at Bondi beach, members of the Jewish community have accused governments of failing to heed warnings about the rise of antisemitism over the past two years.
Speaking on Monday at the floral memorial to the 15 people who lost their lives by the Bondi pavilion, the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, David Ossip, said: “To those who’ve said over the past two years that antisemitism has no place in Australia, yesterday should have finally made it clear that antisemitism has well and truly found a place here in our beloved country.”
As the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, numerous antisemitic incidents have been reported across Australia. Some have been identified by the Australian federal police (AFP) as a “con job” perpetrated by criminals with no ideological intent,while Asio has alleged some were directed by the Iranian government.
This does not include the hundreds, or by some counts thousands, of incidents that do not make the news – verbal abuse and physical violence, offensive graffiti and acts of vandalism – which groups that track the extent of antisemitism say have risen sharply in two years, even if definitions differ.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, and the police minister, Yasmin Catley, have been criticised for overstating the number of incidents. Both have cited figures suggesting there had been more then 700 antisemitic incidents sence 7 October 2023 as justification for hate speech and protest laws.
Catley told a Senate estimates committee in September she “may have had the figure wrong”, and in October it emerged NSW police had wrongly categorised a “significant” number of incidents as antisemitic.
“But quite frankly, there would be so many more [antisemitic] incidents than have been reported, and that I know for a fact,” Catley said.
As of August, police had laid 249 charges in relation to antisemitic incidents against 231 individuals, 44 of which related to offences involving physical violence.
Here are the high-profile antisemitic incidents of the past two years and what we know about them.
2023
Table of Contents
- 2023
- 2024
- October 2024Lewis’ Continental kitchen attackThe Lewis’ Continental Kitchen kosher deli in Bondi was allegedly broken into on 20 October 2024 and set alight, causing an estimated $1m in damage.In January, a 41-year-old man, Wayne Ogden, was charged with starting the fire. he has also been charged with participating in criminal activity as part of a group and is yet to a enter a plea.In March, Sayed Moosawi, 32, a former chapter president of the Nomad bikies, was arrested and subsequently pleaded not guilty to three charges in relation to the attack, and also an earlier arson at the Curly Lewis brewery, also on Curlewis Street, on 17 October 2024. He successfully applied for bail in August.
9 October 2023Sydney Opera House chants
Two days after the Hamas attack, pro-Palestinian protesters marched from Sydney Town Hall to the Opera House, which had been lit up in white and blue in solidarity with Israel after the 7 October attacks by Hamas.
It was reported by some media that chants at the Opera House included “Gas the Jews”, even though NSW police later said an independent expert had analysed audio and visual files and concluded that the phrase used was “Where’s the Jews?”. The chant “Fuck the Jews” was also used.
The co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alex Ryvchin, told the ABC at the time the chant identified by police was worse.
“‘Where’s the Jews?’, if that was indeed what was chanted, is in many ways far worse as it shows a desire to menace, threaten and find Jews and there’s no doubt whatsoever do some horrible things if they were able to find them,” he said.
The organisers of the march said those making antisemitic chants were not part of the original protest and had joined at the Opera House, which police echoed at a NSW inquiry into antisemitism in July.
The incident was widely condemned and formed part of the justification for the first of several moves by the NSW government to toughen hate speech laws, enabling police to prosecute offenders without the permission of the Director of Public prosecutions (DPP).No one has been prosecuted in relation to the incident.
2024
May-June 2024MPs’ offices vandalised
On 31 May, the office of then federal attorney general Mark Dreyfus was vandalised, as were several those of other Melbourne-based federal and state Labor mps. Dreyfus’s Mordialloc office was covered with red paint and had “Who does AG Mark Dreyfus serve?” written on the pavement in front. No one has been charged in relation to the vandalism.
On 19 June, the windows of the St Kilda office of the MP for Macnamara, Josh Burns, were allegedly smashed and the front of the building set alight. An image of Burns was spray-painted with red horns and the message “Zionism is fascism”.
Two teenagers were charged a month later,but the charges were later dropped.
October 2024Lewis’ Continental kitchen attack
The Lewis’ Continental Kitchen kosher deli in Bondi was allegedly broken into on 20 October 2024 and set alight, causing an estimated $1m in damage.
In January, a 41-year-old man, Wayne Ogden, was charged with starting the fire. he has also been charged with participating in criminal activity as part of a group and is yet to a enter a plea.
In March, Sayed Moosawi, 32, a former chapter president of the Nomad bikies, was arrested and subsequently pleaded not guilty to three charges in relation to the attack, and also an earlier arson at the Curly Lewis brewery, also on Curlewis Street, on 17 October 2024. He successfully applied for bail in August.
The Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne,founded by Holocaust survivors,was deliberately set ablaze in the early hours of 6 December 2024. Approximately 60 firefighters and 17 trucks responded to the emergency call at 4.10am.
Police allege two masked individuals spread an accelerant throughout the building before igniting it, causing substantial damage and injuring a worshipper.
Giovanni Laulu, 21, was arrested in November 2024 and charged with the theft of a blue VW Golf, which police believe was subsequently used in the synagogue attack and other related crimes.
younes Ali Younes, 20, was charged in August 2025 in connection with the arson attack. While the incident was initially classified as a terrorist act, no terrorism charges have been filed to date.
Both Ali Younes and laulu face charges of arson and reckless conduct endangering life. Neither man has entered a plea and are scheduled to reappear in court in April 2026. There is no indication that either individual was aware of the alleged Iranian involvement in the attack.
# Australia’s escalating series of alleged hate crimes
11 December 2024Woollahra stabbing
A man was charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing a rabbi outside a synagogue in Woollahra, Sydney. The incident prompted widespread condemnation and heightened security at Jewish institutions across the country.
Police allege the 29-year-old man approached the rabbi and stabbed him in the back before fleeing the scene. The rabbi was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Two people charged in relation to the Woollahra incident were named on a search warrant in relation to the Dural finding, but were not charged.
In March, the Australian federal police deputy commissioner、 Krissy Barrett, who took over as commissioner in October, announced police were confident the caravan was a “fake terrorism plot” and a “criminal con job” allegedly orchestrated by organised criminals.
Police at the time suggested the motivation was to distract police and divert resources away from organised crime, and also to create plots that criminals could pass on to law enforcement as tip-offs, in an attempt to reduce their sentences.
Speaking alongside Barrett, David Hudson, a NSW police deputy commissioner, said police believed 14 other incidents investigated by Strike Force Pearl were organised by the same individuals.
The AFP announcement, which came before the Asio announcement of alleged Iranian involvement in the Lewis’ Continental Kitchen attack, did not identify which 14 incidents they were referring to.
In October, NSW police told parliament the 14 incidents were at the “higher end of offending, being attacks on synagogues, graffiti, firebombings, attacks on cars and attacks on houses”. Police said they still had “nil holdings in relation to Iran or [the] Iranian regime perpetrating these incidents”.
February 2025Bankstown nurses
In February, two nurses at Bankstown hospital were widely criticised after a video was released of them saying they would not treat Israeli patients and appearing to threaten violence towards them.
One of the nurses, a 27-year-old woman, later had a charge of using a service to threaten to kill dropped.Both have been charged with using a carriage service to harrass, while the woman has also been charged with threatening violence to a group. Both have pleaded not guilty and are still before the courts.
4 July 2025East Melbourne synagogue fire
On Friday 4 July, a man poured flammable liquid on the front door of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation in East Melbourne and set it on fire.
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