By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in Crikey
July 7, 2025
Anyone who has been on a tour of Jewish landmarks in Melbourne knows about East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation. Built in the 1870s, it is one of our oldest synagogues. The building is tall and stately with a gilded interior and beautiful stained-glass windows. It sits quietly in Melbourne’s city on a stretch of road also home to several prominent churches.
For families like mine, who have been in Australia since the 1860s, the East Melbourne synagogue carries personal significance. It is where my great-grandparents, Rachel and David Miller, were married almost a hundred years ago. Rachel had come from Russia, seeking safety. David arrived from England, looking for a fresh start. Like so many Jewish immigrants, they came to Australia after fleeing persecution and chose this faraway country as a place to build a new life.
While today most of Melbourne’s Jewish community lives in the suburbs of Caulfield, Elsternwick and St Kilda, the East Melbourne synagogue remains symbolic. It reflects our origins. One of the first things those early Jewish refugees did, even in Australia, a country so far from the rest of the world, was build places of worship.
When I heard someone allegedly tried to burn down East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation last Friday night, when 20 people were inside the building eating Shabbat dinner together, I was shocked and dismayed.
It feels like a rupture, like the safety and security that so many of us Australian Jews took for granted for so long has now disappeared.
Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its brutal attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and kidnapped hundreds — setting in train Israel’s war in Gaza and the killing of more than 62,000 Palestinians — antisemitism has surged globally, including here in Australia.
Undeniably, the experience of being Jewish in Australia has changed. I don’t say that lightly. I grew up here. I went to school here. I have lived my whole life believing that this country is one of the safest places in the world to be Jewish. I believed that Jews were woven into the fabric of Australian life.
But over the past two years, my confidence has been chipped away. There has been a surge in antisemitic violence that feels like nothing I have ever experienced. There have been assaults against Jews and hateful graffiti. The Adass Israel synagogue around the corner from my home was burned and destroyed, yet more than seven months on, the alleged perpetrators have not been arrested. Now East Melbourne has been targeted. I don’t know anyone in our community who isn’t afraid right now.
I don’t know how to stop these attacks, but I think while the government works it out, immediate stop-gap funding for security should be provided to all places of worship to secure them. The security of Jewish institutions in Australia should never be politicised, and support to protect synagogues should be bipartisan.
Ultimately, it’s up to Australia’s political leadership. They need to lead the conversation and shape what safety looks like for our communities. My community has asked repeatedly for strong leadership against antisemitism, but, disappointingly, I and many in my community still are not convinced that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is properly overseeing this.
Like many others, I have started to wonder whether if we, as Aussie Jews, believed something about Australia that was ever really true. Was the safety we felt an illusion? Or is something shifting now that cannot be undone?
I watch my children’s Jewish schools raise their fences and install bollards. I go to community events that do not advertise their location in advance. At my synagogue, I pass security guards at the door. I am now, unsettling and tellingly, used to it — but I do not accept it. Australians are often surprised when they hear how scared Jewish people feel at the moment.
I also keep thinking about my great-grandparents Rachel and David. I wonder what they would say if they knew that, nearly a century after they were married at East Melbourne Synagogue, someone would allegedly try to set it on fire. I wonder what they would make of the fact that their great-grandchildren now go to schools flanked by armed guards.