From the Australian Jewish News:

Anti-semitic incidents surge in Melbourne
24/03/06
MELISSA SINGER

A SERIES of antisemitic incidents in Melbourne ’s Jewish community has marred weekends either side of a quiet Purim, a spokesperson from the Jewish Community Council of Victoria ’s Community Security Group (CSG) confirmed last week.

The incidents, which took place on the weekends of March 11-12 and March 18-19, included the drive-by egging of shul worshippers; a violent attack on Jewish teenagers; a bomb threat to a synagogue; and verbal threats made to an Orthodox rabbi.

According to CSG director Gavin Queit, most, if not all, of the incidents were “crimes of opportunity.”

Last Saturday, Jews walking near shuls in Caulfield, including South Caulfield Hebrew Congregation and Mizrachi, were pelted with eggs, in what Queit believes were isolated, random incidents.

On March 11, a group of Jewish teenagers walking in Caulfield North were pursued by a group of youths, who physically assaulted the boys and shouted “heil Hitler” and “f****ing Jews” before escaping in their vehicle.

Queit told the AJN that as there is no information available regarding the make, model or registration of the car the youths were driving, an arrest over the incident is unlikely.

On the afternoon of March 12, CSG evacuated St Kilda Hebrew Congregation, where a wedding was in its closing stages, in response to a bomb threat.

Queit said a sweep of the area found nothing suspicious.

The same day, an Orthodox rabbi was threatened with antisemitic remarks while he browsed in a suburban shopping centre.

Queit said CSG was also investigating reports of swastikas and antisemitic slogans being daubed in a park in St Kilda East and on a nearby car.

Queit said there was no evidence linking either of the incidents with the assault on March 11, or with each other.

According to an Executive Council of Australian Jewry report tabled last December, 332 antisemitic incidents were recorded nationally in 2005, a fall of 10 per cent from the previous year.

The most serious incident of violent antisemitism in NSW in 2005 was the desecration of Newcastle Hebrew Congregation last April in which vandals daubed swastikas and antisemitic slogans over the shul’s walls.