By Melissa Meehan for AAP/Wires.
Counter-terrorism experts are meeting to decide whether the firebombing of a synagogue should be classified as an actor of terrorism after the Jewish community vowed to rebuild the temple.
Victoria Police and Australian Federal Police could make a declaration as early as Monday, opening up a raft of extra powers for investigators working on the fire at Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne’s Ripponlea.
Those powers could include the ability to stop, search and seize people without a warrant as well as detain and question those they believe have knowledge of, or links to, the attack.
Deakin University terrorism expert Greg Barton said he believed the firebombing, by persons so far unknown, would be declared a terror attack.
“The motivation here is very clear – it wasn’t an individual hate crime attack, it was designed to terrorise a community,” Professor Barton told the ABC on Monday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday said it was up to police to decide, but added he personally believed it was an act of terrorism.
“Terrorism is something that is aimed at creating fear in the community, and the atrocities that occurred at the synagogue in Melbourne clearly were designed to create fear in the community,” he said in Perth.
“From my personal perspective, [it] certainly fulfils that definition of terrorism.”
Hundreds of people gathered outside the synagogue in Ripponlea in Melbourne’s inner city on Sunday in a show of solidarity.
They included the granddaughter of one of the architects of the synagogue (which is modelled on a Budapest synagogue that was destroyed during the Holocaust) Philip Ernst, who arrived in Australia in 1948.
“This is a community of survivors, so we’re going to survive regardless, and we have the moral strength to keep going and to stand for what we believe in,” the woman, who identified herself as Miriam, told AAP.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has been criticised for not attending the rally at Ripponlea, but her spokesperson said on Monday that the Labor government was considering laws to ban protests outside places of worship.
This could include exclusion zones similar to those in place around Victorian abortion clinics.
Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Monday promised to set up an anti-Semitism task force if he is elected to government after next year’s national election.
The federal government has also put an extra $32.5 million in funding on the table for measures to protect the Jewish community, after an initial round of support in October 2023.
Jewish community leaders have vowed to rebuild the synagogue and launched a fundraising campaign.
“We’ll come back bigger and better,” Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne board member Benjamin Klein said.
“The building will be a beautiful jewel in the crown once again.”
Two of the synagogue’s three buildings were gutted in the fire that erupted in the early hours of Friday.
Two people who were inside at the time preparing for morning prayers escaped, with one suffering minor injuries.
Jewish Community Council of Victoria CEO Naomi Levin said she had been told five Torah scrolls, handwritten copies of the book of Moses used during prayers, won’t be salvaged.
Police are also investigating reports of a bullet found on a footpath near the synagogue in Glen Eira Road on Saturday afternoon.
The synagogue remains closed to the public.
