Australia’s antisemitic arsonist

As I was making preparations on Friday night for Shabbat in Columbus, Ohio, my phone buzzed with some devastating news from Australia. The East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, a historic synagogue in my hometown of Melbourne, had been set ablaze by an arsonist while 20 people shared a Shabbat meal inside.

The alleged attacker, Angelo Loras, a 34-year-old man from Sydney, poured flammable liquid on the synagogue’s doors and ignited them. When that fire was lit, it wasn’t just a building that was under attack but more than a century of Australian Jewish history, hope and refuge.

But the man failed, like those who have attacked Jews in the past. And that is because those doors represent something far more powerful than wooden frames and metal hinges; they represent the eternal Jewish commitment to opening pathways to opportunity for humanity.

The synagogue is the same one in which my grandparents, David and Rachel Miller, were married in 1927. For more than 150 years, those doors have welcomed refugees seeking safety, immigrants pursuing opportunity, and children receiving a loving Jewish education. They have been portals of transformation, turning the displaced into citizens, the powerless into contributors, the fearful into the hopeful.

My own grandparents walked through those doors as refugees from the pogroms of Russia and Lithuania. They entered as strangers fleeing violence and emerged as proud married Australians building new lives.