‘Heavy heart’: Warning to be issued for Jewish people travelling to Australia

A travel warning is set to be issued for Jewish people looking to visit Australia after a Melbourne synagogue was firebombed in what’s being treated as a terrorist attack.

US-based Jewish human rights organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Centre is expected to issue a travel warning after the Adass Israel Synagogue in Ripponlea was firebombed in the early hours of Friday morning last week.

The centre’s associate dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper told The Age that he’d send a letter to the Australian ambassador to the US regarding a travel advisory.

“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,” Mr Cooper told the masthead.

“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.”

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton on Monday confirmed the Ripponlea fire bombing was “being treated as a terrorist attack” after meetings with the Australian Federal Police.

“It’s quite clear it was targeted. It was callous and a horrific attack on the synagogue, but by default, it’s an attack on the Jewish people,” Mr Patton said.

Premier Jacinta Allan described the attack as “one of the most evil we’ve seen” and said it was important that “our thoughts again today must be with the Jewish community here in Melbourne”.

“This has been an awful, evil, anti-Semitic and now we know has been confirmed as a terrorist attack,” she said.

“We must remember and continue to hold the community, who is grieving, who is suffering, in our hearts and give them all of our support.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has convened a Commonwealth-led task force, AFP Special Operation Avalite, to tackle rising anti-Semitism in Australia.

Peter Dutton also pledged to set up an “anti-Semitism taskforce” if the Coalition wins next year’s federal election.

He said “the blatant racism that we’ve seen against people of Jewish faith and heritage has been obvious on a daily basis” since Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack in Israel last year.

“Thousands of cases of people who have been targeted in their businesses, in their communities, in their places of worship, and that is thoroughly unacceptable,” he said on Monday.

“So today I announce that stronger action and national leadership will be brought to the table, and a Dutton Coalition government will act from day one to fix Labor’s law-enforcement crisis through a number of policy measures.”