source : the age
By Jessica McSweeney
Two further police investigations are underway after antisemitic graffiti appeared on a synagogue in Sydney’s inner west and an eastern suburbs home overnight.
NSW Police were alerted to multiple swastikas spray-painted on the outside wall of Newtown Synagogue on Saturday morning. Police are also investigating graffiti on a house on Henry Street in Queens Park.
The incidents come after a synagogue in Sydney’s south was vandalised with antisemitic graffiti on Friday, in what Premier Chris Minns condemned as a “hate-filled attack”.
In a statement on Saturday, Minns said he had been made aware of the two new incidents, stressing “acts designed to intimidate and divide will not work”.
“These people are determined to divide our community in two. We will always call out these acts for what they are – monstrous and appalling,” he said.
On Friday morning, police spotted graffiti – including multiple swastikas and a reference to Hitler – on the Southern Sydney Synagogue at Allawah when conducting regular patrols, sparking an investigation including members of the counterterrorism team.
Police have released vision of two people wanted over graffiti sprayed on the walls of the Southern Sydney Synagogue at Allawah.Credit: NSW Police
CCTV showed two hooded figures dressed in black loitering outside the building.
On Friday evening, police released CCTV footage of a man wearing a black hooded jumper, black pants and aviator-style sunglasses, saying he may be able to assist with their inquiries. He is accompanied by another person dressed head-to-toe in black.
Minns denounced the attack in his Sydney electorate as being committed by “bastards”.
“The Southern Sydney Synagogue was vandalised in a horrifying, hate-filled attack by individuals that have got hate in their hearts who are determined to divide our community,” the premier said.
Assistant NSW Police Commissioner Peter McKenna said the “abhorrent” incident did not reflect “the Australian way”.
“Any time you are doing something like this to try and put fear in the community, it’s something that is disgusting,” he said.
Police have released vision of two people wanted over graffiti sprayed on the walls of the Southern Sydney Synagogue at Allawah.Credit: NSW Police
“Those people who would want to do this sort of thing, we say to you, ‘You will get caught, you will be prosecuted and you will be put before the courts’.”
The synagogue’s president, Dr George Foster, said he was “shocked and distressed” to see his synagogue branded with the hateful symbol. Police have stepped up their patrols around the synagogue since the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
Synagogue president Dr George Foster (right) is the son of Holocaust survivors. Credit: Nine News
“Seeing that graffiti and the reference to Hitler brought back images of 1933 … I’m upset that people would do such a thing,” said Foster, who is the son of Holocaust survivors.
He said this is not the first time the synagogue has been targeted. In 1991, the building was firebombed, and it was also vandalised in 2002, he said.
“I sit in the synagogue thinking, ‘In this wonderful country, I have to pray in a building with bars on the windows and with security outside. It really isn’t right,’” Foster said.
The vandalism was quickly condemned by Jewish leaders, many of whom are fed up with the frequency of antisemitic incidents in NSW.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip said it was not “normal or acceptable” for Australians to wake up to incidents of antisemitism.
His comments were echoed by Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin, who said the community expects “swift arrests”.
There have been multiple instances of antisemitic vandalism in Sydney’s east in the past 12 months, including an incident in November last year when multiple buildings and cars were graffitied and a car was set on fire.
Restaurateur Matt Moran’s Chiswick restaurant was one of the buildings vandalised with the words “f— Israel”.
On Tuesday, police charged a man who allegedly pretended to point a gun at a worshipper at a St Ives synagogue.
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