‘It's un-Australian': Rabbi says the hate must stop after graffiti attack on heritage-listed synagogue

The Age

22-06-2025

Rabbi Shlomo Nathanson has described a graffiti attack on the historic Melbourne Synagogue on Sunday as 'un-Australian'.
Vandals used red paint to scrawl 'Free Palestine' and 'Iran is Da Bomb', set inside the outline of a nuclear mushroom cloud, on the heritage-listed synagogue in the early afternoon. There were no religious services or activities at the synagogue at the time.
The attacks were reported to police, and cleaners using special chemicals were able to remove most of the graffiti from the building near the corner of Toorak and St Kilda roads just south of the inner city.
The attack came only hours after news broke that the US had dropped bombs on three Iranian nuclear facilities, but Nathanson urged those people angry about the current situation in the Middle East to not take it out on fellow Australians like those of his Melbourne Hebrew Congregation.
'Tensions are understandably very high today, but an act like this on the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation is just unacceptable,' Nathanson told this masthead on Sunday evening.
'It's the place of worship and it has been since 1841. It's one of the oldest congregations in mainland Australia. Over which time, it has welcomed people from all faiths.'
Nathanson said police were called and security footage was passed on to them. He stressed that the synagogue would continue to serve its broad community of worshippers.
'There's going to be a wide variety of opinions as to the politics in the Middle East and where things stand from one extreme to the other, but to translate that into violent acts and antisemitism and criminal activity here in Australia is un-Australian,' Nathanson said.