Travel warning for Jewish visitors to Australia after synagogue attack

It is the first time the Centre has issued an advisory against Australia and follows the decision on Monday by Victorian and federal police to declare the pre-dawn firebombing of one of Australia’s busiest synagogues a “likely” terrorist attack.

“I will be sending a letter to the Australian ambassador to the United States informing him that we are going to place a travel advisory on Australia for Jews around the world,” the centre’s associate dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper told this masthead on Monday.

“My hope is this will be a short-lived initiative but we will want to know specifically what is being done to ensure the integrity of the Jewish community and most importantly, to hold perpetrators culpable for their actions.

“I do this with a heavy heart but we are not convinced that the authorities in Australia are prepared to take the necessary steps to reassure the Jewish community there.”

The federal police taskforce, codenamed Special Operation Avelite, will increase scrutiny on activists who back violent Palestinian resistance amid antisemitism levels described by Australia’s most senior Jewish politician, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, as the worst of his lifetime.

It will begin its work as the taskforce investigation into Friday’s attack closes in on the suspected arsonists who destroyed the Adass Israel Synagogue in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea. Official sources, unable to speak publicly about the investigation, said the three suspects had been identified but not yet spoken to by police.

Authorities are still working to determine the motivation of the trio, multiple sources said, but the act is being treated as politically rather than religiously motivated. Officers are also working to determine if a car at the scene was being driven by its owner.

Rising social unrest driven by the war in Gaza has dominated political debate since Friday’s attack, which prompted an extraordinary intervention by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a post on X in the early hours of Saturday (AEDT), he linked the attack directly to Australia’s support for Palestinian statehood in the United Nations and put Australia at the centre of a global debate about rising antisemitism in Western democracies.

Operation Avalite, compromising 21 officials from law enforcement and ASIO, will form what Australian Federal Police boss Reece Kershaw called a “flying squad” to combat threats, violence and hatred towards Jews and MPs, in response to the arson as well as vandalism of Jewish areas in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra.

Kershaw said the squad would deploy nationally to incidents and would target people or groups “urging violence against members or groups, advocating terrorism, advocating genocide, using a carriage service to make a threat and using a carriage service to menace or harass”.

After days of Coalition pressure to address antisemitism more forcefully, the prime minister convened the national security committee of cabinet and pledged the federal government’s full support to ensure the Melbourne arsonists would be caught.

“The Melbourne attack will be investigated as a terrorist incident. Our world-class agencies will provide all the support necessary to find the perpetrators and ensure they face the full force of the law,” Albanese said, adding that he would visit the synagogue this week.

He called for unity and pushed back against politicisation of the antisemitism debate, after the Coalition for months accused Albanese of failing to do enough for the Jewish community or for Israel as an ally.

“This is a time where the country should be looking for national unity, not looking for areas of distinction and difference over every issue.”

ASIO boss Mike Burgess repeated his call for public figures to tone down their language and avoid sowing division, as he argued the synagogue attack displayed the “ugly dynamics” his agency had been warning about.

Rabbi Cooper said the Simon Weisenthal Centre, an organisation most famous for hunting Nazi war criminals, issued travel advisories infrequently and only when fears for Jewish safety reached crisis level. The centre last issued one about the Netherlands following last month’s football riot in Amsterdam. An advisory is also current against the Swedish city of Malmo.

He said the decision to issue an advisory against Australia was taken after the antisemitism taskforce was announced and against the backdrop of Australia’s recent shift in position at the United Nations on Israel’s occupied territories and the future of a Palestinian state.

“It is not a secret that the current government of Australia has moved dramatically towards the position of those who opposed peace with Israel and those who want to eliminate Israel,” Cooper said.

“People over here are not convinced there is a true understanding of the depths of what has transpired with the targeting of Jews in Australia.”

The Simon Weisenthal Centre will inform Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, of the advice.

“We take this very seriously. We look forward to hearing back from the ambassador or directly from the government in Australia and most importantly, our fellow Jews and Jewish institutions in Melbourne, Sydney and elsewhere.”

Dreyfus, who is Jewish, called out the worst level of antisemitism in his lifetime as he defended the government’s policies to ban doxxing and create an envoy against antisemitism.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton toured the synagogue on Monday and welcomed the decision to designate the attack a suspected terrorist incident.

“When you hear of the impact on young children, elderly parents within the community, it truly is an abomination,” Dutton said.

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