An evolving and growing threat to us all.

Australia has a proud history of tolerance and multiculturalism, having successfully welcomed people of different backgrounds from around the world.

The Australian Jewish community is an important part of this shared history. Relatively small in size, it has made a meaningful contribution to the Australian story, always seeking to reflect the best of Australian values and contribute to enhancing our way of life.

But recently, the Australian Jewish community has felt a lot less safe.

A crisis of unprecedented scale

Jews experience the highest number of hate crimes per capita among all Australian minority groups, and incident numbers remain at crisis levels. In the two years since 7 October 2023, Australia has averaged over 1,800 antisemitic incidents annually, representing a six-fold surge increase from previous decades. This represents a sustained crisis, not a temporary spike.

Since October 2023, the Australian Jewish community has been subjected to violence, intimidation, and hate on an unprecedented scale – in the physical world and online.

Escalating violence and terror

Most alarmingly, whilst overall incident numbers decreased slightly, the severity of attacks intensified dramatically. Vandalism incidents increased by 14%. Between October 2024 and early February 2025 alone, there were no fewer than eighteen major antisemitic incidents, including some of the most serious on record.

There were more than 20 incidents of serious physical assault during the 2024-25 period. These included violent attacks such as a flaming projectile thrown at a rabbi pushing a baby in a pram, a 66-year-old Jewish man threatened at knifepoint on a Sydney train, and a Jewish man pushed off his bicycle near a synagogue.

The escalation of violence reached a devastating peak on 14 December 2025, when a terrorist attack during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach killed 15 people. Among the victims were a 10-year-old girl, a Holocaust survivor, and two rabbis. This ISIS-inspired act of terror shocked the nation, marked Australia's deadliest ever terrorist attack and demonstrated the lethal consequences of unchecked hatred .

Foreign-directed terrorism on Australian soil
In December 2024, the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed and burned to the ground in an attack immediately declared by police to be terrorism. In October 2024, Lewis's Continental Kitchen, a kosher business in Bondi, was destroyed by arsonists.

In August 2025, the Federal Government and ASIO officially confirmed that both attacks were orchestrated by the Iranian regime, acting through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Australian Jews were deliberately targeted to further the political purposes of a hostile foreign power that sees its war against Israel as a war against the entire Jewish people. Investigations have also highlighted the involvement of serious organised crime networks, with ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess noting that foreign actors operate through a “layer cake of cut-outs”… tapping into “people that they know in the criminal world” and “members of organised crime gangs to do their bidding.”

In February 2025, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess declared antisemitism Australia’s leading threat to life. The Bondi Beach massacre in December 2025 tragically vindicated this assessment.

Targeting everyday life

Antisemitic hatred has infiltrated every aspect of Jewish life in Australia. The geographic concentration of attacks tells a troubling story: New South Wales recorded over 650 incidents, whilst Victoria experienced over 730 incidents during the 2024-25 period . Residents of these states report the highest awareness of antisemitism, with 17% of NSW residents and 14% of Victorian residents having seen or heard about antisemitic incidents in their local areas.

Jewish homes, businesses, schools, and places of worship have been subjected to boycotts, doxxing, vandalism, and arson attacks. A childcare centre adjacent to a synagogue was set alight with graffiti reading "FUCK THE JEWS" . Cars in Jewish neighbourhoods were firebombed with antisemitic slogans painted on them. Synagogues were defaced with swastikas and attempts made to set them on fire whilst congregants were inside.

The verbal abuse documented in 2024-25 includes over 620 incidents. Jewish schoolchildren as young as 10 have been confronted by teenagers shouting "Hitler should have gassed you all" whilst performing Nazi salutes. A Year 9 student was told to "fuck off and die in a gas chamber" by a classmate. Jewish primary school students on a school excursion were harassed by high school students chanting "Free Palestine" and shouting "dirty Jews".

Families have been forced to remove mezuzahs and other identifying features from their homes to avoid being targeted. Community members increasingly avoid wearing visible signs of Jewish identity in public spaces, fundamentally changing how they move through Australian society. A marked increase in graffiti calling to kill Jews, with messages such as "Kill all Jews," "Gas the Jews," "Burn all Jews," and "Murder your local Zionist" - has become disturbingly common.

Jewish students face harassment on university campuses, with many reporting feeling unsafe or unwelcome in educational settings. One in five young Australians aged 18-34 have noted seeing or hearing about antisemitic incidents in their local areas, compared to just 6% of those aged 55 or older . This generational divide suggests that younger Australians are witnessing hatred become normalised in their communities.

The digital realm has become another battleground, with social media platforms amplifying antisemitic conspiracy theories and coordinating campaigns of harassment against Jewish individuals and organisations.

A threat to all Australians

This surge in antisemitism threatens not only the Jewish community but the fabric of Australian society itself. Anti-Jewish racism has left the fringes and become part of the mainstream, where it is normalised and allowed to fester in universities, arts and culture spaces, the health sector, workplaces, and elsewhere . When one minority group can be targeted with impunity, the safety and cohesion of the entire nation is at risk.

The political extremes are more active, more emboldened, and increasingly converging in their common hatred of Jews . What is new is the increasing ideological alignment between the extreme right and neo-Nazis, the extreme left, and Islamists and growing cooperation between them. The patterns of hatred, dehumanisation, and violence we are witnessing echo some of history's darkest chapters.

This intolerance runs counter to the principles that underpin Australia’s social fabric—freedom, respect, fairness, and equality. Its impact extends beyond any one community, affecting all Australians who value a society where people can live without fear of violence or discrimination.

The time for action is now

We stand at a critical juncture. Jews in Australia now have legitimate concerns for their physical safety and future in this country. The escalating frequency and severity of antisemitic incidents demand an urgent and comprehensive response from all levels of society – governments, institutions, community organisations, and individual Australians.

We must restore social cohesion in our country and build a better future for all. This requires not only robust law enforcement and legislative action but also education, community dialogue, and a collective commitment to calling out hatred wherever it appears.

The Dor Foundation exists to turn that commitment into action. We must all stand together against antisemitism and hate.