After Australia’s Hanukkah massacre, critics say appeasing extremists after Oct 7 fueled rising antisemitism

Sunday’s deadly violent onslaught connected Australian Jews celebrating Hanukkah successful Sydney was thing the country’s tiny but historical assemblage had feared since a question of antisemitic incidents began pursuing Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre successful Israel.

While the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, condemned the onslaught — calling it "a targeted onslaught connected Jewish Australians connected the archetypal time of Hanukkah,"— his critics accidental his Labor authorities has failed to appropriately respond to the alarming emergence successful antisemitic incidents crossed the country. 

Avi Yemini of Rebel News Australia, who has been documenting the attacks against the community, told Fox News Digital that conscionable days aft Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, "mobs of Islamic extremists were already openly hunting Jews present successful Australia, chanting ‘where’s the Jews’ extracurricular the Sydney Opera House. Since then, synagogues and childcare centers person been firebombed and repeated warnings ignored. With nary meaningful authorities enactment to face the problem, tonight’s horrific onslaught successful Bondi was tragically inevitable and is improbable to beryllium the last."

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Antisemitic graffiti successful a Jewish country successful Melbourne, Australia. (Executive Council of Australian Jewry )

He said: "The Australian Labor authorities has been unwilling to enactment decisively, successful portion due to the fact that of its governmental reliance connected Islamic assemblage votes. As a result, galore Australian Jews are present facing a devastating wake-up telephone that this state is nary longer arsenic harmless for america arsenic it erstwhile was. I judge galore volition present beryllium earnestly considering a determination to Israel."

AUSTRALIA'S JEWISH COMMUNITY ALARMED BY RISING ANTISEMITISM: 'FEAR AND ANXIETY'

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, center, gestures arsenic helium pushes his mode past a assemblage aft visiting the Adass Israel Synagogue successful Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (Joel Carrett/AAP Image via AP)

Adding to the anger, Australia’s Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faced disapproval for failing to enactment successful an earlier connection posted connected X that the deadly onslaught was directed astatine Jewish Australians.

Following the attack, a newsman confronted Albanese with concerns astir his government’s effect to antisemitism, citing his government’s designation of a Palestinian state, Labor ministers attacking the Israeli authorities and refusing to sojourn the sites of the Oct. 7 massacres, and the simultaneous assignment of peculiar envoys for Islamophobia and antisemitism. The newsman asked Albanese whether his authorities had taken antisemitism seriously.

ANTISEMITIC ATTACKERS VIOLENTLY TARGET SYNAGOGUE, ISRAELI RESTAURANT IN AUSTRALIA

Members of the Synagogue retrieve items from the Adass Israel Synagogue connected Dec. 06, 2024 successful Melbourne, Australia. An arson onslaught connected the Adass Israel Synagogue successful Melbourne forced congregants to fly arsenic flames engulfed the gathering aboriginal connected Friday morning. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the incidental arsenic an antisemitic act, emphasizing that specified unit astatine a spot of worship is unacceptable successful Australia. (Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)

"Yes, we person taken it seriously," Albanese replied. "And we’ve continued to act. We’ve continued to enactment with Jewish assemblage leaders. We’ve continued to instrumentality each the proposal from the information agencies to enactment successful spot peculiar measures, and we volition proceed to bash so."

Albanese’s property bureau did not respond to Fox News Digital’s petition for remark astir frustrations regarding the premier minister’s effect to the wide shooting attack.

An anti-Israel  protestor's high-vis overgarment during a march against the Jewish authorities by the Sydney Harbor Bridge successful Australia. Aug. 2025. (Ayush Kumar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) precocious documented 1,654 anti-Jewish incidents crossed Australia betwixt 1 Oct, 2024 and 30 Sept. 2025, "in summation to 2,062 incidents nationwide the twelvemonth before." 

It besides noted that, "antisemitic incidents successful Australia stay astatine historically precocious levels, astatine astir 5 times the mean yearly fig earlier Oct. 7, 2023… While determination has been a marginal simplification from past year’s all-time high, the astir superior categories of incidents, including arson attacks against synagogues, pre‑schools and different Jewish institutions, are higher than successful immoderate erstwhile twelvemonth connected record."

Some of the much shocking incidents to deed Australia’s Jewish assemblage since Oct. 7, 2023, up until Sunday's panic onslaught include:

Melbourne

Masked individuals mounting a occurrence successful Ripponlea’s Adass Israel Synagogue portion congregants said greeting prayers. The occurrence caused wide harm and injured 1 worshipper. 

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Sydney:

Sydney’s Allawah Synagogue was tagged with swastika graffiti. The pursuing day, the Newtown Synagogue, besides successful Sydney, was likewise defaced. The week prior, a car successful Sydney had been spray-painted with an antisemitic phrase.

Major spot harm was inflicted connected a childcare halfway adjacent a Jewish schoolhouse and synagogue successful Sydney during an arson attack. Antisemitic graffiti was recovered inside.

A car was acceptable connected occurrence successful a Jewish assemblage successful Sydney, and arsenic galore arsenic 7 homes successful the country were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti.

Two healthcare workers successful Sydney speaking connected the societal level Chatrouletka with an Israeli antheral said that they would garbage attraction to Israeli patients and had antecedently killed Israeli patients.

Police escort anti-Israeli protesters extracurricular an Israeli edifice Miznon connected Hardware Lane successful Melbourne, Friday, July 4, 2025. Families were terrified arsenic 1 of Australia's oldest synagogues was targeted by arsonists and protesters shouted chants extracurricular an Israeli restaurant.  (AAP Image/Josh Stanyer/ via Reuters)

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Gideon Sa’ar, the overseas curate of Israel, expressed his sorrow to his Australian counterpart Penny Wong by phone. On X connected Sunday, Sa’ar said that helium told Australia’s overseas curate that "security for the Jewish assemblage successful Australia volition beryllium achieved lone done a existent alteration successful the nationalist atmosphere. Calls specified arsenic ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine Will beryllium Free,’ and ‘Death to the IDF’ are not legitimate, are not portion of state of speech, and inevitably pb to what we witnessed today. The Australian authorities indispensable instrumentality beardown enactment against the usage of these antisemitic calls."

Populist Australian Sen. Pauline Hanson said connected X that Albanese "never heeded the informing signs, including the play antisemitic protests crossed our nation, hatred code from definite spiritual clerics, our obnoxious universities and probable violent alert." Hanson said the Jewish assemblage successful Australia has "the aforesaid close to unrecorded successful bid and harmony arsenic each Australians," and called connected authorities to "be honorable erstwhile revealing the identities and backgrounds of these murderers."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.