New South Wales police have ramped up patrols after an anti-Semitic vandalism attack in one of Sydney's largest Jewish communities. It's the second such incident in Woollahra, in Sydney's east, in as many months. Rabbi Benjamin Elton from the great synagogue of Sydney says more education is needed to protect the Jewish community.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00I was reassured this morning to see an increased police presence that's what
00:06was needed in the immediate term and now we need both short and long-term
00:09measures to protect the safety of all Australian citizens. I think there has to
00:14be proper security funding, there has to be an appropriate allocation of police
00:17resources, there has to be education and there has to be if necessary changes to the legal
00:22framework so the people know that if they are involved in any of this sort of
00:27activity they'll be punished appropriately and perhaps above all the rhetoric that
00:31comes from all people in the positions of responsibility needs to make it clear
00:35there's actually absolutely zero tolerance. This is anti-semitism, this is
00:40racism and any violent actions or in some violent actions will not be
00:44tolerated. I think there's been a lag and there's been a misunderstanding of the
00:48severity of the situation. There's also been an alighting between anti-Israel
00:53activity and anti-semitic activity. What we saw on the streets of Melbourne and
00:58Sydney was not anti-Israel, it was quite clearly anti-semitic, it was targeting
01:01Jewish areas and Jewish facilities. That's anti-semitism and trying to
01:06suggest that it's merely anti-Israel protest is ignoring what's a very deep
01:11and troubling problem for us all. We have certainly moved from having isolated
01:16incidents as bad as they are in their own right and now we're moving towards a
01:20very horrific trend. Two attacks in Wallara, a bombing of a synagogue, can you
01:27imagine such a thing to take place? A synagogue being burnt out by those who
01:32hate the Jewish community. Fires in three places which could have led to
01:37deaths or serious injuries. We're very lucky to escape those terrible
01:41consequences. We've seen a paradigm shift in hostility and
01:47attacks on the Jewish community and the response also requires a paradigm shift.