Victorian antisemitism hits record high for second year running

For the second year in a row, Victoria’s Jewish community experienced record levels of antisemitism in 2025.

The Community Security Group (CSG) documented a total of 564 incidents, marking the highest annual total ever recorded in the state. The findings for 2025, published jointly by the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) and CSG, reveal a community under sustained and widening threat.

The 2025 figure barely surpassed the 560 incidents recorded in 2024. The significance, however, lies not in the marginal increase but in the plateau itself. More incidents were recorded in 2025 than in the entire period from 2018 to 2022 combined. Since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, Victorian Jews have reported an average of 51 antisemitic incidents every month.

2025 will be remembered by the Bondi Beach terrorist attack in NSW, in which Australians were killed specifically because they were Jewish. In Victoria, confirmation also came that the December 2024 arson attack on Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue had been orchestrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“Behind each of these reports is a Jewish person,” said JCCV CEO Naomi Levin. “A child in school uniform abused on a school excursion, a man in a kippah verbally abused on public transport, a worshipper arriving at synagogue to find hateful words painted on its walls, a business owner wiping racist symbols off their window before opening for the day.”

Despite investments in security infrastructure, stronger anti-hate laws and greater awareness of antisemitism, the number of incidents continued to climb. The 564 recorded incidents are also likely to represent only a fraction of reality.

CSG relies entirely on self-reporting. Community members are increasingly telling organisers they did not report incidents because “it happens all the time” or “this is just how things are now.”

Five key trends

1 – Record-level antisemitism persists

Despite elevated spending on community security at both state and Commonwealth levels, the appointment of Australia’s first Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism in mid-2024, and new anti-vilification legislation, the data shows no improvement.

2 – Global flashpoints translate to local hate

International conflict involving Israel correlates directly with spikes in antisemitism in Australia. In 2025, the sharpest surge followed the 12 Day War between Israel and Iran in mid-June. July became the worst month of the year, with 66 incidents.

In the period immediately following the war, an arson attack was carried out against the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation. A second arson occurred at a Greensborough business. Masked protesters stormed an Israeli restaurant in the CBD, overturning furniture and chanting “death to the IDF.”

Even after an Israel-Hamas ceasefire was reached on 10 October, more than 100 further antisemitic incidents were recorded before year’s end.

3- Verbal abuse is increasing

Verbal abuse comprised 40% of all incidents, up from 37% in 2024. Of these, 74% were directed at identifiably Jewish individuals.

Examples include children walking to school in St Kilda East being called “terrorist cunts” from a passing car. In another case, a Jewish man was pushed from his bicycle outside a synagogue. The attacker then attempted to chase another Jewish man and assaulted a non-Jewish security guard who intervened.

On a Melbourne tram, a teenager said of a Jewish commuter: “look, he’s Jewish, we can take him now. We can start slapping him.”

4- Jews are being told they are not welcome

Incidents were recorded across 30 local government areas and 89 localities. This is the widest geographic spread ever documented in Victoria, up from 83 localities in 2024.

In one incident, an intoxicated woman told identifiably Jewish community members in a St Kilda park: “you shouldn’t be here. Isn’t there any parks in Caulfield?”

The report notes the bitter irony that most antisemitism occurs in the same inner south-eastern localities where the Jewish community is concentrated. Data shows 81 incidents occurred as Jewish people walked to or from a synagogue or community facility.

5 – Holocaust inversion is on the rise

Comparing Israeli policy towards Palestinians with Nazi policy towards Jews was recorded 72 times in 2025. This represents more than one in every ten reported incidents.

One email sent to a community organisation accused Jews of being “murdering fascists” and “nothing but Nazis.” It concluded with a threat that they would “burn in hell”.

A group of students from a Catholic boys’ school reportedly abused Jewish students in school uniform on a public bus. They said, “we could kill them all,” “Adolf Hitler was right” and made references to gassing.

Who is responsible?

Where ideology could be identified, 42% of incidents were attributed to far-left motivations. This represents a 141% increase from 2022 and is driven overwhelmingly by Israel-related antisemitism. Before October 2023, far-left antisemitism occurred at roughly one incident per month. By 2025, this had surged to approximately 20 per month.

Far-right incidents accounted for 27% of the total, up from 20% in 2024. A total of 154 cases represents a 24% raw increase.

Neo-Nazi groups operated increasingly openly in 2025. During the federal election, the National Socialist Network distributed antisemitic flyers in Jewish neighbourhoods bearing the logos of mainstream political parties. At a polling booth in Kew, network members dressed in stereotypical Jewish clothing and made antisemitic comments in front of voters and election staff.

For the first time, multiple instances were recorded of neo-Nazis deliberately targeting localities with high Jewish populations in an apparent effort to intimidate residents. Islamist-motivated antisemitism accounted for a stable 3% of incidents.

Schools, synagogues and everyday life

The sharpest single-category increase was in incidents targeting Jewish schools and schoolchildren. These rose 108% to 79 incidents, compared to just 8 in 2022.

Synagogues were the site of 76 incidents, while 104 incidents targeted Jewish cultural organisations or businesses. Thirty-six incidents involved explicit calls for violence.

Jewish Victorians were also increasingly refused service or targeted in everyday commercial settings. An Israeli-born customer at a Bentleigh hair salon was refused service and verbally abused after the hairdresser learnt he had served in the Israeli Defence Forces. Around 150 people later protested outside the salon.

A Carlton Football Club mascot walked out of a Bar Mitzvah, saying he refused to participate “for fucking Zios.” Jewish singer Deborah Conway described “extreme” and “constant” hate throughout the year, including performance venues run by local councils refusing to accept bookings from her.

Law reform and its limits

In April 2025, the Victorian Parliament passed the Justice Legislation Amendment (Anti-vilification and Social Cohesion) Act 2025. It introduced new serious criminal vilification offences carrying penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment.

Yet of 564 antisemitic incidents, only two resulted in charges under vilification offences.

Following the Bondi terror attack, Premier Jacinta Allan announced further measures. These included removing the requirement for Director of Public Prosecutions consent before police could lay vilification charges and flagging reviews of gun laws and social media accountability.

Online Echoes

The report does not include most online antisemitism, as the volume of material is overwhelming and beyond the monitoring capacity of CSG, with such content instead tracked by the Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI). A report by the Institute earlier this year found that online antisemitism surged immediately following physical attacks on Jewish targets, including fires at Melbourne synagogues, with spikes in abusive posts, conspiracy claims and explicit hostility towards Jews across social media platforms.

The analysis also showed that incidents offline were quickly echoed online, where narratives justifying or celebrating the attacks circulated and spread at scale.

A community call for action

The report is a call to action directed at governments, law enforcement and individuals. Its authors urge all community members to report every incident to CSG via the JEAP app or the 24-hour hotline, 1300 000 274.

Click here to read the full report.