The Australian Jewish community will head uneasily into Shabbat after an apparent arson attack on one of Melbourne’s main synagogues, Congregation Adass Israel, while congregants were inside, causing burn injuries to some of them and severely damaging the building.

“I spent the morning outside the shul and I met some of the people who were inside at the time. Their hands were quite severely burned,” Jeremy Liebler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia umbrella group, told eJewishPhilanthropy on Friday.

“If this had happened at 10 o’clock at night when the beit midrash was full, there would have been fatalities. If there hadn’t been a back door…,” Liebler said. “They poured petrol all around one side of the shul, and they banged on the door beforehand — they knew people were inside.” Eyewitnesses told local Australian media that people inside heard the banging and saw the alleged arsonists with gas cans as the fire began to spread.

The attack comes amid a major rise in antisemitism in Australia over the past year. A study by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry that was published earlier this week found that the number of antisemitic incidents in the country from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024 — 2,000 of them — was four times more than during that time the previous year. The predawn Friday attack also came hours after anti-Israel protesters demonstrated outside of Sydney’s Great Synagogue, effectively barring those inside from exiting.

Victoria Police Detective Inspector Chris Murray said in a press conference that approximately 60 firefighters and 17 fire trucks responded to the blaze. Video footage from inside the synagogue after the flames were extinguished shows significant damage to the building and to many religious books. The Torah scrolls in the synagogue do not appear to have been damaged. As of Friday evening in Australia, police were still searching for the two suspected arsonists behind the attack.

“For Jews, the sight of Torah scrolls being carried from a burned-out synagogue evokes some of our worst collective memories. References to Germany in the 1930s no longer seem quite so hysterical,” the local Australian Jewish Independent newspaper wrote in its lead editorial on Friday.

Liebler noted that Adass Israel was historically a synagogue attended by Holocaust survivors. “My grandfather, who came after the Holocaust, he was frum [religious] — that was where they went,” he said. “That shul was full of Holocaust survivors, it was built by Holocaust survivors. It’s a pretty traumatic event.”

The apparent arson was widely condemned both within the Jewish community and by Australian officials, with the country’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, calling it “an act of antisemitism” and an “attack on Australian values.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who spoke with Albanese after the attack, wrote on X that the attack “required firm and strong action, and that this was a message that must be heard clearly from Australia’s leaders.”

In light of these growing threats, both state law enforcement and the Jewish community’s security service, the Community Security Group, are stepping up patrols and other measures ahead of Shabbat, Liebler said. “The Community Security Group is going to have a massive increase around the shuls,” he said. Similar measures were also deployed around Jewish schools on Friday morning.

Shortly after the fire, Melbourne police removed a man wielding a hammer and wearing a balaclava from a Jewish bakery where he’d been verbally abusing customers.

Liebler illustrated the degree of concern within the community by noting that his rabbi, Rabbi Alan Kimche of Melbourne’s religious Zionist Mizrachi community, “gave permission for people to walk around with phones on Shabbat — and he’s a pretty machmir [strict] sort of guy.”

Speaking in a press conference outside the synagogue on Friday morning, the premier of the state of Victoria, Jacinta Allan, pledged AUD 1 million ($643,000) in security grants for the Jewish community and 100,000 ($64,300) toward the reconstruction of the synagogue. Liebler said that alone likely wouldn’t be enough to repair the building, but stressed that “the symbolism of it is important and powerful, and I am grateful for that support.”

Shortly after her announcement, members of the Australian Jewish community began peppering Allan with pointed questions about how her state government and the national government have responded to antisemitism over the past year, leading her to eventually end the press conference and leave early.

Liebler said that while he disagreed with the manner in which some parts of the Jewish community have criticized the government over the attack, such disappointment with the country’s and the state’s Labor governments was relatively widespread.

Australian authorities had yet to determine the motivation for the apparent arson attack, yet Liebler and other Jewish communal leaders indicated that the community believed it to be related to the Israel-related antisemitism that has been seen in the country since Oct. 7, 2023.

“For over a year we have seen racist mobs impeding on the rights and freedoms of ordinary Australians. We have been locked out of parts of our cities because the police could not ensure our safety. Students have been told to stay away from campuses. We have been locked down in synagogues,” Alex Ryvchin, the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, wrote on X after the attack.

“You can’t be surprised when you allow people to march through Sydney chanting ‘Globalize the intifada’ — well this is what globalizing the intifada looks like,” he said. 

Liebler noted that Adass Israel is a Haredi synagogue. “They’re not Zionists at all,” he said. “This is just proof that when people say ‘Zionists,’ it’s code for Jews. Here’s your evidence.”

Noting that Australia recently voted in the U.N. on a resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state, Liebler said, “There is a correlation between the failure of leadership [in Australia] and what we’re seeing.” He stressed that he does not believe that the country’s leaders are intentionally encouraging antisemitism.

Ryvchin called on Australian Jews to lean into their heritage after the attack. “Our security and place in society has been eroded. No more,” he said. “I urge every Jewish Australian to do something today to deepen their connection to their community and their people. Light Shabbat candles. Put on teffilin. Put on a kippah. Give to charity. Put on a Star of David necklace. Do not be afraid. You belong to an extraordinary nation.”

The apparent arson attack on the synagogue drew wall to wall, unconditional criticism from within the Australian Jewish community, Liebler noted, including from the Jewish Council of Australia, which he said was akin to the American Jewish Voice for Peace.

Doron Almog, chairman of the Jewish Agency, called the attack “horrifying” and called for universal condemnation and official action. “The horrifying scenes from the synagogue that was set ablaze in Melbourne are a shocking and unimaginable display of antisemitism. This is a severe manifestation of cruelty and hatred that must be thoroughly investigated and addressed,” Almog said in a statement. 

The American Jewish Committee also called for law enforcement to bring the alleged arsonists to justice. “We call on law enforcement to work quickly to arrest the perpetrators. We firmly stand with the Australian Jewish community. Their pain is our pain,” AJC wrote on X.The International March of the Living vowed to expand its operations in “Australia and beyond” to counter the rise of global antisemitism. “The time for words of condemnation is over, it’s now a time for strong action from governments all around the world,” the group said.