The news of another antisemitic incident is a “punch in the guts” for Australia’s Jewish community, but an arson attack on a Sydney daycare centre has created a heightened sense of anxiety.
Only About Children, a non-religious daycare centre near the Maroubra synagogue and Mount Sinai college, was set alight and graffitied in the early hours of Tuesday.
As the prime minister described the attack as “vile” and viewed the damage to the two-storey building later in the morning, the smell of burnt timber lingered in the air.
Since late November, there have been six major antisemitic incidents in Sydney and one in Melbourne, five of those involving arson.
Anna, a Jewish mother who lives in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, says Tuesday’s attack felt “more dangerous” than other recent incidents because it appeared “directed at little children, and if it had been in opening hours it would be the death of an innocent child, or the harming of an innocent child”.
“Regardless of how you feel [politically], how can you do that to children? It’s absolutely shocking,” she says.
“I think everyone is feeling frightened because this is not just about attacking a Jewish place of worship. This is attacking where Jewish and non-Jewish people go. This is everybody.”
Despite security guards and security drills at her own children’s Jewish daycare centre and school, Anna is nervous about the beginning of the new school year, less than a fortnight away.
“I feel sad that [the children] can’t learn to be good people and read and write with complete freedom and safety. It doesn’t matter if you agree with Israel or do not agree with Israel – it’s just heartbreaking to think that you have to be nervous because of your heritage. It’s soul-destroying.”
Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton, chief minister of the Great Synagogue in Sydney, says parents in his congregation are also fearful as the school term approaches.
“There’s a great deal of stress and anxiety. Parents are not sure about taking their children to school,” he says.
“It’s very, very disturbing to not know what news you’re going to wake up to on any given morning. It’s terrorising – and that’s the point, it instills terror into people.
“There’s a sense of bewilderment and ‘What do we do next?’”
Elton feels that “immense concern and goodwill” from authorities has so far not delivered results for the broader community.
“Everyone who lives in these neighbourhoods is impacted on many levels. Their safety is impacted, the consequences for anybody of whatever faith or background could be disastrous.
“We all lose when our society becomes a less safe, less tolerant, less harmonious place. We are seeing our society collapse.”
In Maroubra, Nick Klein, a local parent, is thinking about his son, who will celebrate his barmitzvah at Maroubra synagogue this Saturday.
“It’s very close to home. To smell the fire here, it’s shocking. The fact that it’s a childcare centre – how low can you go?” the accountant says. “It’s a disgrace.”
Another member of the synagogue’s congregation, who wishes to remain anonymous, says they are “rattled, shocked, but also disgusted that this could happen in our community”.
“I’ve called Australia home all my life and this is really testing what I thought of my country. I know this is a minority, but it needs to be stamped out. It’s hard for everyone here, it’s not just the Jewish community.”
Pro-Palestinian Jewish advocate and former synagogue member Michelle Anna Berkonsays the racism that has surfaced in recent incidents “is horrific”.
“It’s a terrible thing. This is a really awful thing to happen in the Jewish community I grew up in.”
Writing on X, the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), Alex Ryvchin, says the attack on the childcare centre required “a depth of savagery that is difficult to imagine”. On Friday, his former home in Sydney’s east was vandalised and cars outside torched.
The Jewish Council of Australia’s Sarah Schwartz says it is “really important for politicians not to use this incident for political-point scoring and to push their own agendas”.
“Waking up today to read the news about yet another violent antisemitic incident is a punch in the guts for all Jewish people,” she says.
“We need to see a really principled anti-racism response that addresses the root cause of this violence.”
Following repeated calls by the ECAJ, national cabinet met on Tuesday and state and territory leaders agreed to set up a new national database tracking antisemitic crime.
NSW police have also allocated an additional 20 investigators to Strike Force Pearl, effectively doubling the number of police focused on recent antisemitic incidents.
