Jewish bakery targeted in antisemitic attack
"Baker in the Rye" in Carlisle St graffitied over shabbat, CSG and Police notified
A Jewish-owned bakery in Melbourne has become the latest target of antisemitic vandalism, adding to what one of the owners describes as “a really exhausting 18 months for the Jewish community in Australia.”
Baker in the Rye, a community fixture established in 1994 and purchased by Holocaust survivor Michael Rakov and his wife Mara in 2002, was defaced with the words “Israel is evil” over shabbat.
Jacqueline Rakov, daughter of the founders who has been helping manage the bakery since January due to her mother’s illness, discovered the graffiti after a medical colleague alerted her.
“It’s that sort of very deflating experience of why Jews in Australia are the victim of antisemitic hate relating to conflict happening 14 thousand kilometers away,” Jacqueline told The Australian Jewish News.
The bakery has deep roots in the Jewish refugee experience.
Michael and Mara Rakov fled Belarus when it was part of the Soviet Union in 1976, spending 10 months in Italy with the Jewish Agency before arriving in Australia in 1977 looking for a place of refuge.
Michael, born in 1932, survived the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the Holocaust.
Though not religiously observant, he “very much identified as Jewish, and was proud of his heritage and his gastronomical roots,” according to his daughter.
The couple worked various jobs upon arrival in Australia—making cabbage rolls and Michael doing labor work and then teaching for 23 years.
He later applied his background as a radiophysicist to revamp the bakery’s recipes through his knowledge of physics and self-taught baking, making it a neighbourhood institution.
Michael passed away in mid-2022, deeply affected by the Russia-Ukraine war, which Jacqueline says “was reminiscent of the invasions they lived through.”
Jacqueline reflected that in one sense she’s relieved that he’s not here to see what’s happened.
The bakery has never taken political positions on international conflicts.
“There’s no room for politics in the delivery of hospitality and essential services. Everyone is welcome equally,” Jacqueline emphasized.
“This is not the Australia that my parents sought refuge in.”
While the graffiti has been cleaned off and the incident reported to the Community Security Group with CCTV footage provided, Jacqueline believes that “like many victims in Australia, it’ll go nowhere.”
She expressed frustration at what she sees as a lack of “appetite to de-escalate the cultural hatred that’s disseminating the country.”
The incident is particularly painful coming at a challenging time for Jacqueline, who has been balancing her primary job in the psychiatric field with running the bakery.
“Doing this as a side hustle has been hard enough, you know, managing production and wholesale and staff and everything, and then on top of all that…” she explained, her voice trailing off.
The community response, however, has been heartening.
“We’ve had a lot of people come in from the community saying that they’re horrified, not necessarily Jewish customers either,” she said.
“Locals, Elwood and surrounding [residents saying] there’s no place for that.”
Jacqueline said, “I think for every hateful remark or hateful act, there’s a lot of support. And I understand that’s the case within any business that’s been victimized.”
Reflecting on the psychology behind such acts, she said, “There are people who genuinely hold hateful antisemitic views, and unfortunately… there seems to be no moral cost to being outwardly antisemitic today, which is making the community feel very unsafe.”
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