Not Again. Not Here. Not Now.

Dear Australia

On Friday night, Jews around the world lit candles to welcome in the peace of Shabbat.

In East Melbourne, someone tried to burn us alive.
It wasn’t a metaphor. It wasn’t online abuse. It was a fire bombing — hurled at the doors of a synagogue while families, children, and grandparents sat inside. It was fire, real and intended. It was meant to harm, to kill, to terrorise.

At the same time, protesters stormed Miznon, a small Israeli-style restaurant in Melbourne. They didn’t protest outside. They invaded. They flipped tables, terrified diners, screamed “Death to the IDF,” and fled into the night. Further south, Jewish-owned cars were vandalised and set alight.
This is not the Australia we know.

But this is the Australia we now inhabit.

We are grateful for the swift condemnation from the Victorian Premier and the Prime Minister. We are told these actions do not reflect “who we are.” But with each week, each firebomb, each slogan chanted, each flag waved in hate, the question becomes more urgent:

Who are we becoming?

We Jews are used to danger. It is stitched into our memory, into our rituals, into the very architecture of our communal life. In Melbourne alone, our schools are ringed by gates and armed guards. Our community centres are monitored 24/7. We train our children in lockdown drills. Our Whatsapp groups talk of food and fear. We whisper before we speak too loudly in public with a Magen David around our neck.

This is not new. But it is intensifying. And it is no longer sustainable.
The fear is no longer abstract. It is immediate. It is present. It is physical. It is burning.

And still — we are not asking for pity. We are not seeking exceptionalism.
We are asking for solidarity.

Not in words, but in action. Not behind closed doors, but in public.
We ask of this country — the one that gave us refuge, the one we love, the one we have helped build — to rise to the moment. Because what is happening is not merely about Jews. It is about whether Australia can still distinguish between protest and persecution, between dissent and dehumanisation, between justice and the justifications of hate.

Because this is what we saw on Friday night: not a political statement, but a campaign of fear.

Because when you throw fire at a house of worship – for the second time  — you are not expressing anger. You are declaring war on belonging itself.
Because when you storm a restaurant and scream death chants, you are not protesting policy. You are trying to drive a people out of public life.
And when your silence follows such acts — you become, however unintentionally, part of the erosion.

So my fellow Australians, this is what we need from you:

We need you to say clearly that “Death to the IDF” is not activism. It is hate speech. It is the same phrase shouted by terrorists while slaughtering 364 people at the Nova music festival on October 7 — the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It is a slogan soaked in blood.

We need you to see that the slogan “From the river to the sea” is not a vision of peace. It is a euphemism for erasure. Of one state. Of one people. That is not justice. That is eliminationism.

We need you to demand that schools teach Jewish history — not just the Holocaust, but the humanity, the culture, the pain and the perseverance. That universities make space for Jewish safety as part of the inclusion they claim to champion. That unions, councils, and professional bodies protect Jewish Australians with the same urgency they apply to others.

We need you to call out hate when you see it happening, because the truism is more real than ever: the behaviour you walk by is the behaviour you no longer just accept but allow to ignite into a bonfire of hate.
Speak, loudly and early — before more fires fly.
Because history doesn’t repeat itself — it leaks. Slowly. Subtly. Then all at once.

And let us be clear: no matter your views on the war in Gaza, no matter your politics on Israel and Palestine — nothing justifies torching synagogues. Nothing explains storming restaurants. Nothing allows death chants in our streets.

Nothing.

This country has a choice to make.

Do we want a future where fear determines who gets to walk safely down a street?

Where religion becomes a target? Where people of any faith — Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh — have to worry whether their children can wear their identity in public?

Adam Slonim is the director of the Middle East Policy Forum.