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NewsAustralia

Antisemitic incidents down from peak but still triple pre-Gaza war

Jewish organisations and businesses faced an unprecedented number of cases of arson and vandalism in the year leading to September 2025, including 18 classified as major.
Ruby Kraner-Tucci
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Graffiti calling for another October 7 style attack, written on a Melbourne retail store two years exactly after the 2023 attack (AAP Image/Joel Carrett)

Graffiti calling for another October 7 style attack, written on a Melbourne retail store two years exactly after the 2023 attack (Image: AAP Image/Joel Carrett).

Published: 3 December 2025

Last updated: 4 December 2025

Anti-Jewish incidents have declined in Australia over the past year but remain much higher than before October 7, 2023, according to the latest Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) annual report.  

There were 1,654 anti-Jewish incidents recorded between October 2024 and September 2025, compared to the highest ever record of 2,062 incidents the year prior. The rate of incidents is 20% lower than 2024 but still triple the rate that occurred before the October 7 attack and Gaza war.

The number of arson and vandalism attacks in 2025 was higher than ever before with 33 cases, including 18 classified as "major".

<em>ECAJ Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia 2025</em>
ECAJ Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia 2025

Verbal abuse accounted for the highest proportion of incidents (621), followed by anti-Jewish posters and stickers (379), graffiti (359), messages (238), vandalism (33) and physical assault (24). 

Victoria suffered most with 738 incidents, while NSW experienced 662 cases. 

The reported incidents of abuse ranged from harassment and racist speech to intimidation and threatening behaviour, many with strong reference to Nazism and the Holocaust.

Examples include a group of 20 young people who shouted “Hitler should have gassed you all” whilst doing the Nazi salute towards a group of religious Jewish boys in Melbourne; occupants of a vehicle who shouted “Heil Hitler” to people exiting a synagogue in Perth; and three men who yelled “fucking Jew” towards an identifiably Jewish individual in Sydney, with one performing a gesture of slitting his throat. 

The report does not include online antisemitism, which has also increased sharply.

<em>ECAJ Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia 2025</em>
ECAJ Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia 2025

Increase in arson and vandalism 

Notably, there was an increase in the number of arson and vandalism attacks in 2025, with this year’s reports being some of the most serious on record. 

Amongst the 18 major incidents reported were the arson attack on Lewis’s Continental Kitchen in Bondi in October 2024 and the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in December 2024. A positive link between these attacks and the Iranian regime was confirmed by the federal government and ASIO in August 2025, with the targets selected due to their association with the Australian Jewish community. 

Acts of vandalism over the past year include the graffiti of 10 Nazi swastikas and the letter ‘Z’ on the fence of a Sydney synagogue; the smashed windows of an Israeli-Jewish owned cafe in Perth; and a pig leg thrown inside an identifiably Kosher and Jewish business in Sydney, among others.

“We are now at a stage where anti-Jewish racism has left the fringes of society and become part of the mainstream, where it is normalised and allowed to fester and spread, gaining ground at universities, in arts and culture spaces, in the health sector, in the workplace and elsewhere,” read the ECAJ report, which was compiled by research director Julie Nathan. 

“The political extremes are more active, more emboldened, and increasingly converging in one area – their common of hatred of Jews/Zionists.

“In such an environment, Jews have legitimate concerns for their physical safety and future in Australia.” 

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Three times higher than pre-October 7 

While the 2025 figures show a decline, the overall total of anti-Jewish incidents remains about three times higher than reports in any year leading up to the October 7 Hamas attacks and resultant Gaza war.  

On average, there were 342 annual anti-Jewish incidents in the decade prior to October 2023. While in the two years following, this average has spiked exponentially to 1,858 annual incidents. 

Importantly, ECAJ does not include social media content as incidents, unless the comments are direct death threats or other threats of violence that necessitate reporting to police.  

ECAJ also acknowledges that due to a variety of reasons, many anti-Jewish incidents go unreported, and these findings are therefore only a proprotion of the total number of incidents that have occurred throughout 2025. 

READ MORE

Full Report on Anti-Jewish Incidents in Australia 2025 (ECAJ)

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Australian attitudes to Jews and Israel (Key takeouts from TJI Crossroads25 Survey)

Crossroads25: full reports (TJI)

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About the author

Ruby Kraner-Tucci

Ruby Kraner-Tucci

Assistant Editor

Ruby Kraner-Tucci is a journalist and TJI's assistant editor. Her writing has appeared in The Age, Australian Jewish News, Time Out and Broadsheet, among others. Ruby was awarded Multicultural NSW’s Best Report in Multicultural Media 2025 and has been named a Top 36 Under 36 Jewish Changemaker by B'nai B'rith.

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