Another antisemitic hate crime in Sydney – childcare center torched

The Australian prime minister slammed the attack, and the regional premier vowed to find “the bastards.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A childcare center in Sydney, Australia, was heavily damaged in an arson attack overnight Tuesday, and antisemitic graffiti was found scrawled on an exterior wall, leading to forceful condemnations by the country’s top political echelon.

The Only About Children preschool is not connected to the Jewish community but is located in the vicinity of an Orthodox synagogue and school.

It was set on fire at around 1 a.m., and the authorities found the message “F**k the Jews” written in large black letters on the wall outside.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hurried to the site in the morning to “utterly condemn this evil hate crime” and wonder aloud how the perpetrators “could think that something like this would advance any alleged cause that people might have.”

“The only objective which will be achieved by this crime is the fulfillment of these people being caught, charged, and facing the full force of the law,” he said.

At a press conference, Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, where Sydney is located, condemned “these antisemitic attacks” that are against “everything and all of the traditions that we hold dear in Australia.”

He blasted “the kind of people” who would burn down a childcare center “because it’s located next to a synagogue…[and] attack a fellow Australian whom they don’t know because of their race or religion” as “bastards [who] will be rounded up by NSW Police.”

“It breaks your heart that we have animals in our city that are prepared to burn down a childcare center to make” their hatred of Jews clear, he said, adding that the police “are directing a huge amount of resources to this.”

This incident is the latest in a string of recent property attacks in Sydney in which vehicles have been torched, homes and synagogues vandalized, and antisemitic messages left behind.

Many similar attacks have taken place in recent months in Melbourne as well, which also has a large Jewish community. In December, the ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel synagogue in the city was severely damaged in an arson attack that injured one person and was deemed a terrorist incident by the authorities.

Albanese was heavily criticized for not visiting the site until days later although he had verbally condemned the crime on the same day it was committed.

He also announced the formation of an antisemitism task force called Abalight “to deploy nationally to incidents.”

Reacting on X to the Tuesday arson, Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin wrote, “Places of worship, homes and now preschools have all been targeted by domestic terrorists. Anti-Semitism consumes everything. It is the disease that is destroying our country. We need national cabinet to deal with what is a national emergency.”

Albanese convened the cabinet later in the day “to discuss collectively the responses that are being made by state and territory governments” to the series of antisemitic hate crimes the country is experiencing.

ECAJ announced last month that antisemitic events quadrupled in Australia, with over 2,000 incidents reported, in the year following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023 after the terrorist organization led a massacre of 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in a surprise invasion and kidnapped approximately 250.