Overview

• On July 5, a man doused the front door of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation with a flammable liquid and set it alight during Shabbat services, forcing about 20 worshippers to evacuate safely through a rear exit.
• Victoria Police arrested a 34-year-old man from New South Wales on Saturday evening and charged him with arson, reckless endangerment and weapons possession, with a magistrate ordering he remain in custody until a hearing on July 22.
• Federal and state investigators are probing whether the synagogue attack constitutes a terrorist or hate crime and assessing its connections to an assault on an Israeli restaurant and antisemitic vandalism in Greensborough earlier that day.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the firebombing as an act of antisemitic violence that must be met with the full force of the law.
• Melbourne’s Jewish community, the largest in Australia with around 55,000 members, has increased security measures at synagogues and businesses in response to the surge in targeted antisemitic incidents.