Melbourne synagogue sustains severe damage in predawn attack by masked arsonists

"Arsonists extensively damaged a Melbourne synagogue on Friday in what Australia’s prime minister condemned as an antisemitic attack.

Victoria Police Detective Inspector Chris Murray said a witness who had come to Adass Israel Synagogue to pray saw two masked people spreading an accelerant inside the building at 4:10 a.m.

The synagogue was ‘engulfed in flames,’ Murray added. ‘We believe it was deliberate. We believe it has been targeted. What we don’t know is why.’

About 60 firefighters and 17 fire trucks responded to the blaze, which Murray said caused extensive damage.

Investigators have yet to identify a motive, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese blamed antisemitism.

‘This is an outrage. The violence and intimidation and destruction at a place of worship is something that we should never see in Australia,’ Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...

Television images from the synagogue attack showed firefighters hosing down the embers through the blackened door of the single-story building, which has a grey concrete facade.

A board member of the synagogue, Benjamin Klein, said a few congregants were sitting and praying inside when the fire started, and ‘they heard loud banging.’

Liquid was poured inside the synagogue and it was set alight, he said, adding, ‘If this had happened an hour later, there would have been hundreds of people inside.’

The congregants ‘ran out the back of the synagogue. One man who ran out — his hand got burnt,’ Klein said, adding the fire was ‘extensive’ and that the synagogue’s ‘inside is completely gutted,’ and that holy books and furniture were destroyed.

He vowed, however, that the community would ‘rebuild.’...

Quadrupled attacks since October 7

Opposition Leader Petter Dutton, meanwhile, said the attack was predictable, amid a rise in antisemitism that he said Albanese had failed to stand up against since the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel started the ongoing war in Gaza.

Antisemitic incidents in Australia have quadrupled since the Hamas attack, amid a global surge. Physical assaults on Jews in Australia spiked from 11 the previous year to 65.

‘Why have we allowed, since October 7 of last year, months and months of violent protests to take place, the vilification of people of Jewish faith, the defacing of cars, and now the bombing of a synagogue?’ Dutton said.

‘It’s unacceptable, totally unacceptable in our country, and the prime minister needs to step up for our values, and he needs to do that not just here at home, but also in the United Nations and elsewhere around the world,’ he said, appealing to Albanese to be a more straightforward ally of Israel in international forums.

Israel’s Ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon on Friday noted that dozens of anti-Israel activists had staged a three-hour protest outside The Great Synagogue in downtown Sydney on Wednesday, demanding sanctions against Israel. Worshippers were prevented from leaving the synagogue during the demonstration.

‘We are talking about the values you expect Australians to follow, not my own values. And for me it’s clear that everyone should have the right to worship his own religion, own beliefs, as long as they also respect others,’ Maimon said..."