January 21, 2025 | Flash Brief

‘How Can You Do That to Children?’: Jewish Community Daycare Center Torched in Latest Antisemitic Outrage in Australia 

January 21, 2025 | Flash Brief

‘How Can You Do That to Children?’: Jewish Community Daycare Center Torched in Latest Antisemitic Outrage in Australia 

Latest Developments 

  • Childcare Center Burned in Arson Attack: A Jewish community-run daycare center in Sydney was set alight by arsonists and sprayed with antisemitic graffiti in the early hours of January 21, marking the seventh major hate crime targeting Jews in Sydney in three months and the second in the city in just four days. Nobody was injured in the attack on the Only About Children center, which is located near a synagogue and a Jewish religious college in the suburb of Maroubra, but the incident has again raised anxiety in the Jewish community about the volume and venom of antisemitic attacks. “Regardless of how you feel [politically], how can you do that to children?” a Jewish mother named Anna told The Guardian. “It’s just heartbreaking to think that you have to be nervous because of your heritage. It’s soul-destroying.”  
  • Ongoing Spate of Antisemitic Outrages: The latest arson outrage was preceded by six other antisemitic attacks in Sydney since October amid a growing climate of hostility in Australia fueled by pro-Hamas demonstrations. On October 20, a kosher restaurant in Bondi was subjected to an arson attack. In the suburb of Woollahra, cars were burned and vandalized, and Jewish homes were sprayed with antisemitic graffiti in two separate attacks on November 21 and December 11. A car parked in the Queens Park neighborhood was daubed with antisemitic slogans on January 6. On January 10 and 11, respectively, a synagogue in Allawah was plastered with swastikas and the message “Free Palestine,” while a synagogue in Newtown was similarly vandalized as the assailants attempted to set the building alight. On January 17, four days before the attack on the daycare center — the former home of Alex Ryvchin, an official with the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, was daubed with red paint as four cars outside were sprayed with slogans reading “F—k Israel” and “F—k Jews.” Elsewhere in Australia, the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne was destroyed in a December 6 arson attack. 
  • ‘These Bastards Will Be Round Up’: Strike Force Pearl — a unit of the New South Wales police created to investigate the spate of antisemitic incidents — has so far charged more than 40 people with antisemitic offenses. Following the arson on the daycare center in Maroubra, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — whose government has been widely criticized for failing to counter the antisemitic wave — announced the creation of a national database to track antisemitic attacks. Separately, New South Wales premier Chris Minns denounced the attack as “completely disgusting,” pledging that “these bastards will be round up by the New South Wales police.” Speaking following the attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu linked the explosion of antisemitism with “the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia.”  

FDD Expert Response 

“The neat separation between ostensibly peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrations and antisemitic acts has been decimated by this series of attacks in Australia. They also demonstrate painfully that Jewish communities outside of Israel, in Australia and too many other countries, are an additional front in Hamas’s war of annihilation, at the mercy of police forces and governments who all too frequently dither when confronted with violent antisemitism.” — Ben Cohen, Senior Analyst and Rapid Response Director 

“Antisemitism helped convince the majority of world Jewry that only Jewish autonomy could guarantee Jewish safety. The monsters burning down Jewish daycare centers to ‘Free Palestine’ are just proving that anti-Zionism equals antisemitism and reinforcing the need for a Jewish safe haven in the historic Jewish homeland.” David May, Research Manager and Senior Research Analyst  

FDD Background and Analysis 

‘Act of Antisemitism’: Synagogue Set Ablaze in Melbourne,” FDD Flash Brief 

The Australian Government Allowed Hate Speech Against Jews and Israel; Then a Synagogue Was Burned,” by David May 

The Nazification of Anti-Zionism,” by Ben Cohen 

Issues:

Issues:

Israel

Topics:

Topics:

Israel Hamas Palestinians Jewish people Benjamin Netanyahu Australia The Guardian Sydney Melbourne