They burned a local synagogue, but we're not going anywhere
Waking up one morning last week to news of an arson attack — it would soon officially classed as a terrorist act — at Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue, my first instinct was to joke. As messages poured into my family group chat, I quipped about figuring out who our righteous gentiles would be and where we might hide.
My first instinct is always to joke, to lighten the mood, to make things seem not so bad. But this feels bad.
The attack on Adass Israel Synagogue is the most brazen act of antisemitism I’ve witnessed in my 28 years in Melbourne. And it has been followed by a week of unrest. Just a few days after the attack, residents in a predominantly Jewish suburb in Sydney woke to see their cars had been firebombed overnight, accompanied by graffiti reading “Hitler was right”, among other antisemitic and anti-Zionist slogans scrawled on nearby property. The perpetrators of these incidents are yet to be caught. Sadly, none of this comes as a surprise.
I grew up around the corner from the synagogue. Until I moved to New York six months ago, I’ve always lived within walking distance. It’s one of more than 50 synagogues in Melbourne, which altogether serve a community of 50,000 Jewish people. This is a community shaped by resilience, built on the foundations of trauma — more than 17,000 Jewish refugees, including my grandparents, settled here after the Holocaust. For many years, Melbourne has been home to one of the largest Holocaust-survivor populations outside Israel. That generation not only rebuilt their lives here but also laid the groundwork for a thriving community: youth movements, schools, cultural centers, and some of the world’s strongest remaining Yiddish institutions.
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head in Melbourne Australia.
"Hitler" was a Fucking Mass Homicidal Maniac And ChickenShit who Committed Suicide.. that's your fucking "hero", Assholes. 
It's so Heartbreaking! 
