Second synagogue in Sydney, Australia vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti | Religious Affairs

Australia has seen a series of anti-Semitic incidents in the past year, including graffiti on buildings and cars.

Anti-Semitic graffiti has been plastered over a Sydney synagogue, police said, one day after a separate synagogue was vandalized in the New South Wales state capital.

Vandals sprayed red-painted swastikas outside a central city synagogue early Saturday morning, while a home in Sydney’s east was daubed with anti-Semitic slurs, according to police officials.

The incident comes after an attack on the Southern Sydney Synagogue in the suburb of Allawah in the early hours of Friday. A special police team has been assigned to investigate the incident later on Friday.

“[There is] there is no place in Australia, our multicultural society, for this type of crime,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday, referring to the Synagogue incident in South Sydney.

“These people are determined to divide our community in two,” added provincial Premier Chris Minns.

“We will always call these actions for what they are – they are terrible and appalling.”

Australia has seen a series of anti-Semitic incidents in the past year, including graffiti on buildings and cars in Sydney, and an arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne that police have ruled to be “terrorism”.

The December attack on a Melbourne synagogue prompted the government to create a federal anti-Semitic force.

Anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents in the country have increased since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023 and Israel began its war in Gaza.

Some Jewish organizations say the government has not taken enough steps to respond.

The incidents also damaged Australia’s relationship with Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Albanian government of the Labor Party of encouraging such attacks with “anti-Israeli” policies.

“Unfortunately, this criminal act cannot be separated from the anti-Israel spirit that is blowing in the Labor government in Australia,” Netanyahu wrote on X in December, referring to the synagogue arson attack.

Australian attorney general Mark Dreyfus, who is Jewish, said Netanyahu was “absolutely wrong” to link the attack to government policy.

“Australia remains as close a friend to Israel as we have been since the Labor government recognized the state of Israel when it was founded by the United Nations,” Dreyfus told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the national broadcaster, last month.

“Now, that’s still a position.”