A prominent Jewish leader has said “there is an evil at work in this country” after his former home in Sydney was vandalised.
The incident is the latest in a spate of antisemitic attacks in the city, and the New South Wales police commissioner says while there is nothing to suggest they are linked, the force is keeping “an open mind”.
The Dover Heights home once owned by Alex Ryvchin – the co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry – was splashed with red paint before 4am on Friday.
Four cars were damaged, with two set alight. One car was graffitied with the words “Fuck Jews”.
Ryvchin told reporters after the attack it would be “one hell of a coincidence” if he was not the target.
He feared the personal targeting of prominent Jewish leaders was a major escalation that could bring dire consequences.
“No one wakes up with surprise at this sort of news,” he said.
“It’s just a question of which target and how bad the damage, and I fear that we’re going to wake up before long with someone dead.”
Ryvchin said his wife woke him with the news, adding the personal nature of the attack “stung”.
“To target someone’s home, someone’s sanctuary, someone’s family, to endanger the lives of the good and decent Australians that live around here and light a fire when people are sleeping in their homes, there is an evil at work in this country,” he said.
“If we allow these things to keep happening, they slowly define our national character and they change who we are as a people,” he said.
He thanked the police and counter-terrorism officers, saying he has “absolute confidence” in their determination to keep the community safe.
Last weekend, counter-terrorism police were called in to investigate after a Sydney synagogue was spray-painted with red swastikas on Saturday. There have been previous attacks on synagogues and suburban streets in Sydney.
“We’ve got an open mind to whether any of these matters are linked,” the NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, told reporters on Friday.
The state’s premier, Chris Minns, said the repeated attacks were “horrifying”.
He said Friday’s attack in Dover Heights appeared to be “targeted”. Minns said he had spoken to Ryvchin who was “concerned” but also “resilient and strong and absolutely fortified in his commitment … to his leadership position”.
“I never thought I would see this kind of naked racism and antisemitism repeating itself on the streets of Sydney in such an organised, horrifying manner,” Minns said.
“It is truly disgusting and against all of the ethos, all of the community sentiment, about what living in Australia is all about.”
The premier said: “While police can’t categorically, at this early stage of the investigation, say the attack and the residents are linked, clearly it would be a massive coincidence if they were not linked.”
The assistant police commissioner Peter McKenna told reporters that 20 detectives on Strikeforce Pearl were “going back months and months” looking at offences committed in NSW.
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“We will not give up, we will follow every lead,” McKenna said. “We will have every detective we need, every resource we need, to get to the bottom of these crimes.
“There are people out there who will know something about these crimes. There are people out there who will know who is committing these crimes. We urge you to come forward.”
Minns said he could not promise an end to antisemitic crimes in NSW – but could promise a “full and comprehensive police response”.
He said when parliament resumed in February the government would pursue changes to the law on protecting religious places of working – “in particular the great synagogue in the middle of Sydney CBD” – and also changes to hate speech laws.
“The reason for those changes in hate law and hate speech is because I don’t think a firebombing in Sydney is where this begins. I think it begins with individuals in our community promoting, tolerating and highlighting hatred of Jewish [people] in their communities,” he said.
Asked if national cabinet should be convened to address antisemitism, Minns said he would be “open to that”.
David Ossip from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies told reporters that what occurred in Dover Heights “should never be seen here in Sydney or Australia”.
“No Australian should go to bed with apprehension about hate crimes being perpetrated overnight. No Australian should be concerned with the wellbeing of their property or vehicles overnight,” he said.
“[To those] who want to intimidate and menace the Jewish community, who want us to be silent … you will not succeed. The Jewish community is resilient.”
Ossip said the Dover Heights attack was part of “a campaign of domestic terrorism targeted at the Jewish community”.
The NSW police minister, Yasmin Catley, at Friday’s press conference warned the perpetrators: “We will hunt you down, we will find you and lock you up.”
Jewish Council of Australia’s executive officer, Max Kaiser, condemned the “racist attacks”.
“It’s a big kick in the guts for any Jew waking up and seeing that there’s been another one of these attacks,” he said.
“We still don’t know who’s behind it but it does point to the broader problem of racism that continues to persist in Australian society. That’s antisemitism and Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism and we need to have efforts that take all racism in Australian society seriously, and make sure we’re not pitting different communities against each other.”
The Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive, Alon Cassuto, said the attack wasn’t “just an assault on Jews, it’s an attack on all Australians”.
