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Chief financial officer Fayzah Saleh said the school community was devastated.

“You can imagine the big frustration we have. We don’t know why this is happening. lt’s a question mark,” she said.

Ms Saleh said cleaners were asked to clean up the damage before students and teachers were allowed to enter the classrooms.

She said a school assembly was held that morning to calm students.

“We told them not to feel scared and that they should be proud of themselves. We tried to calm them down.”

“We want to ensure the safety of the students and the school as well.” Ms Saleh said the vandalism started two months ago and attacks had escalated.

“We would be getting to school and finding the windows of the main entrance smashed.”

Every time we would repair the glass, the same night they would come and smash it.”

“It would happen at the start of every second week.”

“It cost us about $1200 each time, but this time it will cost us no less than $10,000 to fix it.”

“They’re very professional, they know what they are doing.” Police are asking witnesses or anyone with information to assist them with the investigation.

Information to Moreland CIU, 93556052, or Crime Stoppers, 1800333000.

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“Now the Supreme Court has vindicated us, we are back on a neutral playing field,” Catch the Fire leader Danny Nalliah said after this morning’s hearing at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

“I emphasise that our heart’s desire is not to have a go at Muslims or the Islamic community, but they took us to court and we have only been defending ourselves.”

But Pastor Nalliah said he would not take a backward step on the teachings that the tribunal earlier ruled vilified Muslims.

The Islamic Council complained under Victoria’s religious vilification law that Catch the Fire Ministries and pastors Nalliah and Daniel Scot vilified them in the seminar and in a newsletter.

In the seminar, Pastor Daniel Scot said the Koran promoted killing and looting, that Muslims wanted to take over Australia and terrorists were true Muslims.

Judge Michael Higgins upheld the complaint in the Victorian and Civil Administrative Tribunal, ordering the Christians to take out newspaper advertisements apologising and to undertake not to repeat the teaching in Australia. But his judgement and orders were set aside in the Court of Appeal last December.

The appeal judges ordered the case back to the tribunal to be re-heard by a different judge. Yesterday the parties appeared for the first time before tribunal vice president Judge Marilyn Harbison, who said the case would need an experienced mediator.

Catch the Fire solicitor Philip Curtis said the seminar was held in March 2002. “We are now five years down the track. It’s been a long time to have the issue unresolved.”

Islamic Council spokesman Waleed Aly said he hoped the new mediation could achieve what the original mediation has intended: a resolution.

“The only reason it got to court was a rejection of the mediation,” Mr Aly said. “The appeal was not about vindication of either party but an inquiry into the judge’s reasons. It’s quite possible to get the right result from the wrong reasons.”

The courtroom was packed with Catch the Fire supporters, who have followed the case closely for three years.

But they were not allowed to bring in their placard reading “Freedom of speech or religious tyranny?”

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According to Mr Pollack when he ignored the group’s harassment they surrounded him and acted in a more threatening manner and then hit him on the back of his head, apparently with a newspaper. Mr Pollack attempted to leave the area and said the group tried to trip him.

Manny Waks, from tolerance group the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, said he feared the attacks would force people to hide visible signs of their religion. “We do not want to get to a situation like in some parts of Europe where Jews fear wearing traditional Jewish items such as a yarmulka as it may make them a target of anti-Semitism,” Mr Waks said.

He said his organisation had seen the number of reports of anti-Semitic incidents double in the past decade, which he linked to an increase in tensions in the Middle East. “We lay a significant amount of the blame on the (Muslim) leadership, where you’ve got someone like Sheikh (Taj al-Din al-) Hilali feeling quite comfortable declaring his anti-Semitic views,” Mr Waks said.

The attack comes less than a year after another visibly Jewish man, Menachem Vorchheimer, was attacked by members of an Ocean Grove football club while walking in Caulfield.

Senior Sergeant Neil Mathieson of Caulfield police said the incident was anti-Semitic and police were taking it seriously. He said police were aware of the occasional anti-Semitic incident, “but in terms of the large Jewish population in this area, it is not a significant problem”.

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