Melbourne synagogue arsonist motivated by mental illness, judge rules

Around 20 worshippers were having a Friday night dinner inside the synagogue at the time of the attack.

By JNS

An Australian judge ruled on Monday that the man who set fire to a Melbourne synagogue while worshippers were inside was motivated by mental illness, not antisemitism.

The ruling follows a wave of antisemitic attacks that have roiled Australia since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, including the firebombings of synagogues and a Jewish day care center and attacks on Jewish-owned businesses and property in both Melbourne and Sydney.

Australian Magistrate Malcolm Thomas found that Angelo Loras, 35, who doused the front door of the East Melbourne Synagogue with flammable liquid and ignited it on July 4, had been in the grip of a delusion stemming from failure to take his schizophrenia medication.

The assailant, who had pled guilty to arson and recklessly placing people at risk of death, was eligible for release on Monday due to time served.

Around 20 worshippers were having a Friday night dinner inside the synagogue at the time of the attack.

“This is a difficult one because there do seem to be genuine mental health issues, but it’s perhaps worrying that Mr. Loras, who was born in Iran, came to have a bag with flammable liquids and something to start a fire with, that he came to choose a synagogue out of all the available buildings, and that he came to be there on a Friday night and was trying to gain entry,” Jamie Hyams, Director of Public Affairs at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, told JNS on Monday.

“We certainly hope this was indeed just an unfortunate coincidence, and that there will be no repeat.”

The attack was one of three suspected antisemitic incidents to rock Melbourne that weekend, along with the storming and trashing of a popular Israeli-owned eatery and vandalism against a business and three vehicles.

The Australian government has blamed Iran for an arson attack on Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue in December 2023, which extensively damaged the building, as well as an attack on a Sydney kosher food business two months earlier.

Last year, Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the “anti-Israel attitude of the Labor government in Australia” for the arson of a Melbourne synagogue.

About 110,000 Jews live in Australia.