When I was shaken awake by my panicked wife, around 5 a.m. on Friday morning, to the news that our former home had been the target of an antisemitic attack, I was upset—but not shocked. That’s because there is nothing unusual about what happened.
As co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, I spend my days advocating for my country’s Jewish community—which numbers around 120,000 people. And since October 7, 2023, I have woken many times to news like this. Staff, journalists, and politicians have all called in the small hours to inform me that a synagogue is burning, or that cars, daubed with antisemitic slogans, are on fire, or that yet another Jewish business has been vandalized.
But the most recent target of antisemitism in Australia is a building that was, until two years ago, my home—a whitewashed semi in Dover Heights, a comfortable Sydney suburb. This wonderfully ordinary place, which sheltered me, my wife, and our three small daughters from a global pandemic, was set on fire and vandalized. One of the arsonists also scrawled “Fuck Jews” on the side of a nearby car.