Australian authorities ignored warning signs of rising antisemitism, some Jewish leaders say

Over the past two years, leaders of Australia’s Jewish community have seen a rise in anti-Semitism and have urged the country’s leaders to take action.

But Australia, like other countries grappling with a resurgence of what is called the “oldest hatred” since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, 2023, has been slow to respond to the threat, Jewish leaders said Monday.

The country suffered its deadliest mass shooting in almost 30 years, with the massacre of 15 people last weekend during a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.

“We have seen all kinds of exclusions, abuse, attacks, harassment, threats, bombings, synagogue burnings,” said Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. “This country has fundamentally changed in two years, and it’s now culminating on the beach.”

In the wake of the shooting, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his National Cabinet pledged Monday to eradicate the “evil scourge” of anti-Semitism and take other measures such as strengthening already strict gun control measures and creating a centralized national database on hate crimes and incidents.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said Albanese and the Australian government had so far “all talk and no action”.

“This is not the first incident of this kind in Australia, it’s just the worst,” he said. “Warm and encouraging words will not be enough. We are looking for action, policy changes.”

Rabbi Menachem Gluckowsky, associate chief judge of the Chabad rabbinical court in Israel, echoed Cooper.

“I think it’s certainly a wake-up call for Australia,” Gluckowsky said. “I think it’s a wake-up call for all countries. It’s not just our battle. It’s not just a battle for the Jewish people. It’s a battle against evil. Just because you feel like you’re right, you can’t shoot people in cold blood.”

Gluckowsky compared the Bondi Beach attack to the pogroms that European Jews endured for centuries. He said governments around the world, and particularly those in the West, have been slow to respond to the rise in anti-Jewish hatred.

Both Gluckowsky and Cooper say pro-Palestinian protests have fanned the flames of anti-Semitism. And Australia’s decision in September to formally recognize a Palestinian state was a “signal” to terrorists bent on attacking Jews, Cooper said.

“They allowed the Jews to run wild,” Cooper said.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday, Albanese was asked if he saw a link between the recognition of Palestinian statehood and the Bondi shootings.

“No, I don’t. And the vast majority of the world recognizes that a two-state solution is the way forward in the Middle East,” the prime minister said.

“My job is to provide support to the Jewish community, to make it clear that the majority of Australians stand with the Jewish community during this difficult time,” he added in response to a follow-up question.

Cooper’s denunciation comes a day after a father-son terrorist team opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration taking place on the iconic beach. The father, aged 50, died instantly. Her 24-year-old son remained in a coma at the hospital Monday, officials said.

So far, Australian officials have not released their names or disclosed their motive. But since the war between Israel and Hamas began two years ago, Australian lawmakers and experts have reported a surge in anti-Semitic incidents.

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, killed 1,200 people in Israel, and the Israeli military response resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 people in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian health officials.

Australian Jews are facing “an unprecedented rise in anti-Semitism across the country,” an Australian parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism concluded in October 2024.

Earlier this month, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry reported 1,654 anti-Jewish incidents across the country between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025.

There were 2,062 such incidents in the previous year, an all-time record for Australia, the organization reported.

Homes, cars and schools were vandalized with anti-Israeli messages. A synagogue and a daycare were targeted by arsonists. Two nurses were suspended for posting online that they would kill or fail to treat Jewish patients.

And in January, police foiled what they said was an anti-Semitic plot when officers seized a trailer packed with explosives.

Most of the threats have been reported in Sydney and Melbourne, which are Australia’s largest cities and home to 85% of the country’s Jewish population, or about 117,000 people.

Previously, Australian lawmakers responded to the threats by passing tough hate crime laws, which included mandatory prison time for those who gave the Nazi salute in public.

They are now considering strengthening Australia’s gun laws to make it harder for residents to get their hands on the type of high-powered rifles and shotguns allegedly used to stain the sand at Bondi Beach with blood on Sunday.

Online anti-Semitism has also increased in recent years, fueled by anger over the conflict between Israel and Hamas and enabled by a new freewheeling social media landscape where content moderation on sites like X and others has been relaxed.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies disinformation and extremism, found a 4,963% increase in the number of anti-Semitic comments on YouTube on videos related to the conflict, compared to the days before the October 7 attack.

For months after the incident, the institute found that fringe platforms like 4chan, Bitchute, Gab and Telegram saw a 50% increase in daily anti-Semitic comments.

Sunday’s shooting was Australia’s deadliest mass shooting since April 1996, when a man armed with two semi-automatic weapons went on a rampage in the tourist town of Port Arthur on the island of Tasmania, killing 35 and injuring 23.

This bloodshed resulted in legislation banning the ownership of most automatic and semi-automatic rifles and significantly reducing the number of mass shootings in Australia.

Increasingly emotional, Gluckowsky said they would “stay strong and carry on” despite what happened at Bondi Beach.

“We will not be intimidated or inhibited about who we are as Jews,” he said.

Matt Bradley reported from Israel and Ben Goggin and Corky Siemaszko from New York.