Shortly after 4am on Friday, the quiet hush of a synagogue in inner Melbourne was broken by what sounded like a sledgehammer, ripping through the place of worship.
Glass flew, and one congregant, who was inside the building at the time studying religious texts, was injured.
Police have now declared what was an attack that left much of the inside of the building gutted, with twisted steel littering the floor, was likely a terrorist act.
Today, regional editor Benjamin Preiss, on how he felt about attending synagogue the day following this attack, and how it’s impacted his community.
And later, senior writer Michael Bachelard, on how Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has weighed in on the incident, saying that Labor is partially to blame.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris. It's Tuesday, December 10th. Shortly after 4 a.m. on Friday, the quiet hush of a synagogue in inner Melbourne was broken by what sounded like a sledgehammer ripping through the place of worship. Glass flew, and at least one congregant who was inside the building at the time studying religious texts, fled. Police have now declared the attack that left much of the inside of the building gutted with twisted steel. Littering the floor was likely a terrorist act. Today, regional editor Benjamin Price on how he felt about attending synagogue the day following this attack and how it's impacted his community. And senior writer Michael Bachelard on how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has weighed in on the incident, saying that labor is partially to blame. So, Benjamin, can you first off, just run us through some of the basics and tell us what actually happened at the Adas Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on Friday?
So on Friday morning, we woke to the news that there'd been a fire at the Adath Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea in inner Melbourne. Um, and it was throughout the day that sort of more details started to emerge as reporters got down there and started speaking to witnesses.
Good morning guys. Yeah, this is a pretty serious incident here. They are treating it as a suspicious fire. Fighters came here just after 4 a.m. and they found it fully involved. It took quite an effort to bring it under.
The fire was really quite damaging. Did a lot of damage to the inside. The congregation was not able to have their, uh, Friday night Shabbat service, nor their Shabbat service the following Saturday. So the damage was really quite substantial.
As dawn approaches, a temple burns firefighters dousing a fierce inferno at one of Australia's busiest synagogues, which forced early morning worshippers to flee.
Throughout the course of the day, we started to learn more information about what happened and the fact that even though this fire was lit at about four in the morning, there were actually some people inside and at least one man, as I understand it, was injured.
With some liquid thrown inside and was lit alight. The few people inside the synagogue ran outside the back door. One of them got burnt. But yeah.
Then we we started to learn a little bit more that there were a number of masked people who police are looking for who appear to have been behind this. And, um, yeah, we just saw more and more of the.
Damage today from the ash. And with the Sabbath on their doorstep, worshippers salvaged precious handwritten Torah scrolls as they now focus on rebuilding just weeks out from Hanukkah.
And so we are, of course, talking to you today because you wrote a really powerful opinion piece about this attack. You are Jewish and so is your family. You don't actually attend Adas Israel, but you do attend a synagogue nearby. This is your neighborhood. This is your religion. And as you've written it is, you know, an important part of your identity. So when you first heard about this attack, what went through your mind?
Initially, I kind of struggled to believe it. Um, I didn't really want to think that anyone would deliberately do that. And the fact that somebody was inside or people were inside at the time made it all the more troubling for me. Um, and I was reporting on this story as well. I was working from home, reporting from home, kind of speaking to my contact, you know, from the community. And, um, I guess there was a little bit of autopilot perhaps, going on for me. And, you know, I kind of had my job to do. I was doing it trying to learn more about it intellectually, but not necessarily feeling it. And I think it was really the next day that I started to feel some emotion about it in a more, uh, substantial way.
And when you actually heard about it, I mean, I believe you actually had plans to attend your own synagogue the following day on the Saturday. So what were your thoughts around that? Did you sort of question whether you would feel safe to do that, or is that not something that you thought about?
No, I didn't I didn't question whether I would feel safe. The heightened intensity in this climate was something that maybe subconsciously was running through my mind. Um, but it was when I spoke to and I quoted him in my piece, but when I spoke to a friend who's a rabbi from another synagogue, a different one, and I asked him, you know, do you think people are going to be holding back and not and not and perhaps not wanting to go? His immediate response was, on the contrary, where we're doing it, we're going to keep doing all the things that we that we would normally do. And it was at that point that I felt even more so, like I wanted to go to the, um, uh, Shabbat service on the Saturday morning, the Sabbath service. I plan to go anyway, but I just felt adamant about it then.
So it would be accurate to say that, you know, when you went to synagogue the following day on the Saturday, it was almost in a spirit of defiance. Is that right?
I felt like if other people are going to be going publicly and sort of defiantly and, um, you know, wearing their identity on the outside that I wanted in, I wanted to be part of it. I am not an Orthodox Jew. I do not go to synagogue. Uh, you know, religiously, um, this is not something that I do without fail, 52 weeks of the year on the on the Sabbath. But on the Saturday just passed, I was really adamant that, Yes, I definitely want to go. I want to be part of something. And I think a lot of others were feeling that as well.
And then, of course, you have then taken a step further because you actually decided to write this first person piece, and it would be very understandable not to write this, not to expose yourself in what you know, like you say, is kind of become a heightened climate, but you have. So why did you actually decide to do that? Why did you take that step?
Well, I feel like I'm lucky enough to have this platform at the age and that I can. I have this opportunity where I can write something that it will resonate. A lot of people have written to me since from my community and thanked me for writing it. It was that spirit that I that I wanted to capture. I wanted to do something specifically apolitical and something that just perhaps helped people relate on a human level to how their fellow Jews, neighbors, fellow Australians might be feeling. Um, I don't speak for anybody else except for myself, but I feel like I wanted to have the chance to capture something about what I was feeling and to and to share that.
And I know that since October 7th, you know, a number of people in the Jewish communities in Australia have said that they have felt unsafe. Do you feel like this is a particular moment in Australia that sort of takes this a step further, that perhaps there are more people in the community who are feeling less sure of their safety here.
I think that's understandable that Jewish people feel less safe. I still go about doing the things that I want to do in an open way. Um, but I can certainly understand that there might be some Jews who who might not feel that I can. I can understand that they might be feeling that the ramifications of the war between Israel and Hamas are real for people in Australia as well. Um, you know, no, I'm not I'm not making any comparison between the experience of, you know, us and people in the Middle East. But I think there are some people who legitimately feel less safe in, in Australia doing the things that they used to do that they probably didn't even think about before, and that they are feeling that now. Um, and at the same time, Jewish communities have always had to think about their safety and security. We've had security guards at schools and synagogues and things like that for for a very long time. And, you know, before maybe it felt like a an added precaution or doing these things out of like an abundance of, uh, of, uh, of caution. But now you can see why.
And then just finally, what do you find comfort in amidst, you know, attacks like this that that many feel really are an expression of hate?
I take comfort, especially after this piece that I've written in the number of people who have contacted me, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Um, I take comfort in, um, the, uh, the community institutions that I've been a part of since forever. Um, I take a lot of comfort in some of the young Jewish leaders who are, um, who are stepping up quite a few of these young people. Some of them really inspire me and make me think that, you know, what the future might be. Okay. And I just I just take comfort in friends, family and the fact that with all of this going on, I want to keep an open mind. I want to keep reading. I want to keep being willing to change my mind when presented with new information. I want to be around people who are doing that as well and just want the best for our fellow humans. As cheesy as that might sound.
No, it's not cheesy at all and I'm grateful to have your perspective on this. So thank you so much, Benjamin, for your time.
Thanks very much.
After the break, senior writer Michael Bachelard on how this attack on a synagogue in Melbourne has reverberated through international and domestic politics. So, Michael, first off, do we know anything about why this synagogue was targeted or anything about the motivation of the people who attacked this place of worship?
Well, I'm speaking here on Monday and we're hoping soon to hear from the Australian Federal Police about what they know so far.
Thank you and good afternoon. I am AFP Deputy Commissioner for National Security.
Would be neo-Nazis. It could be pro-Palestinian or people who are worried about what's going on in the Middle East. It could be.
Anyone. Now, a terrorism investigation led by the Victorian joint counter-terrorism team.
Commissioner, what do you know about the three suspects at this point in time?
Um, we have three suspects involved in this Attack. That is all I will say. I do not want to jeopardize the investigation by going into a blow by blow description of what's occurred and what evidence.
Okay. And then in the early hours of Saturday morning, our time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he weighed in on this attack in Melbourne, posting a statement on social media. So can you walk me through what he said?
It was a shortish statement, but but it really packed a punch. It basically blamed the Albanese government's change in position on the occupation of the Palestinian territories for the attack on the synagogue in Melbourne. So that was a committee vote that the Albanese government and previous Australian governments way back to 2001 had either voted against or abstained to. And in this case, they changed their position and essentially called for the occupation of the Palestinian territories to end. Now, a lot of other countries voted for that. 157 other countries voted for that. But a couple of days after that was the synagogue attack. And Benjamin Netanyahu made a very clear link between those two things in his social media post, and he went even further than that. He also said, essentially that any attack on Israel not physical attack, but verbal or rhetorical attack on Israel and what it's doing constitutes anti-Semitism, that is. That's a pretty big call.
And of course, Benjamin Netanyahu is not the only politician to have linked this attack to a failure of the Labour government to protect the Jewish community here. So tell me what members of the opposition are saying about about this attack and the rise of anti-Semitism in Australia?
The strongest opposition really is coming from Peter Dutton, who's been a hawk on these issues for for a good many years.
It's it's a tragedy and it's a national disgrace. It should never have happened. And nobody should be surprised by the fact that it has happened, which is part of the tragedy. The fact is that the Prime Minister took a deliberate decision 13 months ago to play down the level of anti-Semitism in the community, and.
Has made the claim that stronger national leadership could have prevented it.
This is an act of terrorism, pure and simple, And I think the Prime minister's, uh, deliberate decision to seek political advantage over the.
So he's obviously I mean, his election campaign is based partly on this idea of Albanese as a weak leader. And so he's seeking to assert strength. And in doing so, he's he's proposing setting up an anti-Semitism taskforce, which is not just cultural taskforce. It's a hard policing based taskforce at the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, ASIO and so forth. And further to that, for him as prime minister to direct that the AFP prioritise anti-Semitism. So he's pulled out all stops in terms of the kind of the hard security based response to this. As part of Dutton's package, it seems he's authorising the the recipients of security funds in the Jewish community to use those funds to post armed guards outside, say, synagogues, schools where Jewish people gather. And that's quite different from the way the Labour government has envisaged those funds where they don't want armed guards. So that, again, is quite a key difference.
And so, Michael, what have we heard from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about the attack?
Well, Anthony Albanese has condemned the attack outright.
To attack a place of worship is an attack on Australian values. To attack a synagogue is an act of anti-Semitism.
He's proposed $30 million to the Jewish community for security.
In partnership with the Jewish community on this. We've extended the program to $32.5 million of additional funding.
It took him a few days. It wasn't until Sunday until he called it out as a terror attack or said it. In his view, it seemed to be a terror attack, which obviously the opposition has criticised for being too slow. But yes, his his condemnation of the attack has been wholehearted and firm.
And so what will happen from here? I guess in the immediate term? Like, how does our government handle this moment?
It's a good question. The politics of this in some ways are going along in parallel with the facts on the ground. So the facts on the ground are that a synagogue was firebombed. We don't know yet from the police what the motivation of the bombers were or what have you. I think it's absolutely 100% clear. It's anti-Semitic. But, you know, was it Nazis, neo-Nazis? Was it pro-Palestinian protesters? Was it just somebody who had a beef with the local rabbi or with Adas Israel as a as a sect of Judaism? We don't know. And we can't tell until the police find something out about about these attackers and their motives. But the politics has gone way beyond that, to the point where, you know, in the context of a looming federal election, the opposition is using it as another tool to beat the drum for national security and security in general.
Thank you so much, Michael, for your time.
It's a pleasure.
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Tammy Mills and Angus Delaney, with technical assistance by Taylor Dent. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Our head of audio is Tom McKendrick. The Morning Edition is a production of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. If you enjoy the show and want more of our journalism, subscribe to our newspapers today. It's the best way to support what we do. Search The Age or Smh.com.au for subscribe and sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter to receive a comprehensive summary of the day's most important news, analysis and insights in your inbox every day. Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Selinger. Morris, this is the morning edition. Thanks for listening.