By: Fern Sidman – Jewish Voice News

Australia has witnessed a modest reduction in antisemitic incidents over the past year, yet levels remain “shockingly elevated” and far above historical norms, according to a sobering new annual survey by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). As VIN News reported on Wednesday, the community-wide audit—spanning the period from October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025—documents 1,654 verified incidents, a figure representing a decline from the record 2,062 cases registered in the previous reporting cycle but still nearly triple the baseline average of the decade prior to the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023.

The numbers paint a portrait of a Jewish community living under sustained, relentless pressure—one that has scarcely had the opportunity to regain a sense of normalcy following the dramatic spike in hostility that erupted across Australia in the wake of the terror attacks in southern Israel. Even as the atmosphere stabilized somewhat with the passage of time, Jewish Australians continue to confront levels of intimidation, harassment, and violence unseen in the country’s modern history.

According to the information provided in the VIN News report, the ECAJ’s comprehensive report shows that verbal abuse remains the most prevalent form of antisemitic targeting, comprising 621 incidents, or 38 percent of all documented cases. These encounters—ranging from shouted slurs on public transport to menacing verbal taunts directed at visibly Jewish individuals—underscored what community leaders describe as a corrosive “ambient hostility” that has intruded on daily life with unprecedented frequency.

Physical violence, which surged in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks, declined significantly—falling 63 percent from the previous year. But analysts caution against drawing comfort from the statistical downtick; the prior year’s total represented an extraordinary spike, and the overall threat level remains far from normal.

Simultaneously, vandalism increased by 14 percent, signaling what the ECAJ described as “a hardening of intent” among perpetrators. The report notes that graffiti—once largely limited to antisemitic slogans or crude insults—has increasingly taken the form of explicit calls for the murder of Jews. This evolution in tone, from expressions of hostility to incitements of violence, represents what VIN News called a deeply disturbing trend with implications for both communal safety and broader societal cohesion.

The 2024-2025 reporting period included a string of severe incidents that, taken together, signal an atmosphere far more volatile than the raw numerical totals might immediately suggest. As highlighted by VIN News, the report chronicles firebombings of synagogues, Jewish day schools, and even private homes—attacks that placed entire neighborhoods on alert and reignited painful memories of an earlier era of global antisemitism.

Threats by two nurses to murder Jewish patients, a revelation that sent shockwaves through the healthcare community and raised profound concerns about the vulnerability of Jews in essential service settings.

The alarming discovery of a trailer filled with explosives, allegedly intended for deployment in a mass-casualty attack on a Sydney synagogue—a plot that security officials say could have produced Australia’s deadliest antisemitic attack in history.

The ECAJ report emphasized that the breadth and intensity of these threats illustrate an expanding spectrum of extremist activity, ranging from lone-wolf actors radicalized online to coordinated networks inspired by transnational anti-Israel narratives.

The release of the ECAJ’s findings coincided with a period of mounting geopolitical friction that has deepened anxiety within Australia’s Jewish population. In September, the Albanese government cast a controversial vote at the United Nations General Assembly in favor of Palestinian statehood—a symbolic gesture that precipitated a sharp diplomatic dispute with Israel and, as the VIN News report noted, left many Jewish Australians feeling increasingly isolated from the political mainstream.

Community leaders say the timing of the government’s decision—amid ongoing hostilities in the Middle East and a global wave of antisemitism—has aggravated fears that Australian policymakers are disconnected from the lived experiences of their Jewish constituents.

“The slight reduction from last year’s record is welcome,” ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said in a statement published by VIN News, “but the current level of antisemitism remains shockingly elevated and poses a clear and present danger to Jewish Australians.”

Ryvchin further warned that Canberra’s diplomatic maneuvers have emboldened those seeking to delegitimize the Jewish community’s connection to Israel and have, in some cases, been leveraged by activists who claim official validation for their hostility toward Jewish institutions.

The ECAJ report situates Australia’s crisis within a global trend: a wave of antisemitism—much of it couched in the language of anti-Zionism—that erupted across Western democracies following the atrocities of October 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza. But while the broad contours of the surge mirror developments in the United States, the United Kingdom, and parts of Europe, Australia’s experience carries distinct national characteristics.

According to the information contained in the VIN News report, Australian antisemitism over the past year has been fueled by a hyper-charged university environment in which anti-Israel encampments proliferated across multiple campuses, a series of inflammatory political demonstrations featuring extremist slogans and, in some cases, explicit praise for Hamas, intensified online abuse directed at Jewish public figures, students, and journalists and unrelated domestic grievances—such as debates over migration, indigenous rights, and national identity—that have been opportunistically attached to anti-Israel messaging.

The interplay of these forces has created what the ECAJ termed an “ecosystem of hostility,” in which fringe views have gained traction and conspiratorial narratives have gone largely unchallenged in some sectors of civil society.

In the face of the ongoing threat landscape, Jewish organizations across Australia have expanded security measures and deepened coordination with law-enforcement agencies. As the VIN News report highlighted, synagogues and schools have adopted heightened alert protocols, while communal leaders have pressed state and federal authorities to enhance counter-terrorism resources and ensure swift prosecution of hate crimes.

At the same time, the ECAJ report emphasized that combating antisemitism is not solely a matter of policing or security infrastructure. Education, the report argues, remains a crucial tool in reversing the spread of ignorance and misinformation that frequently lies at the core of anti-Jewish sentiment.

The organization has called for strengthened Holocaust education in public and private schools, mandatory anti-hate training for government employees, increased digital literacy initiatives to counteract social-media-driven radicalization and broader public messaging campaigns that reinforce the compatibility of Jewish identity with Australian civic values.

Despite the grim statistics, Jewish communal leaders struck a tone of defiant resilience upon the report’s release. As the VIN News report noted, the ECAJ and its partner organizations emphasized that Australian Jews will not retreat from public life, nor cede communal space to extremists.

At synagogues, schools, cultural institutions, and Jewish community centers across the country, attendance has remained steady or—in some cases—risen as a signal of unity. The message, leaders say, is clear: intimidation will not dictate the rhythm of Jewish life in Australia.

Still, the challenges remain formidable. The ECAJ report leaves little doubt that the post-October-7 wave of antisemitism has permanently altered the communal landscape, with effects likely to reverberate for years.

As Ryvchin warned in his remarks to VIN News, “The threat is grave, and the stakes are high. Jewish Australians must not face this danger alone. The entire nation—and its leaders—must stand unequivocally against this hatred.”