Windows of the Beth-El synagogue on Durham St North have been smashed, New Zealand Jewish Council spokesman and Christchurch resident Ben Kepes said.
“And it’s really just the tip of the iceberg of what we’re starting to see in the Jewish community,” he said.
A police spokesman said police received a report of vandalism at a property on the street last week and had been providing reassurance and prevention advice to the community.
He said police had not been able to find anyone involved in the incidents and the matter had been filed: “We will follow up on any further lines of inquiry that may come to light.”
Kepes said the Jewish community felt as though there was a “double standard in terms of the way authorities are protecting other marginalised, minority communities in New Zealand, but not the Jewish community”.
The vandalism of the Christchurch synagogue follows the New Zealand Jewish Council saying the community was feeling “isolated and vulnerable” after a swastika was drawn on a statue of former Mayor of Auckland Sir Dove-Myer Robinson, who had Jewish heritage.
The statue vandalism came after or during a pro-Palestine rally in Auckland’s Aotea Square.
A Jewish-linked property has also been targeted in Epsom, while the fence outside Premier House in Wellington was tagged with pro-Palestine slogans.
‘Entire community feeling vulnerable’
“We don’t feel that the authorities are taking the threats to us as a community seriously enough,” Kepes said.
Kepes went further, saying authorities, specifically politicians, had been “screaming anti-Semitic terrorist slogans” in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“The end result [of that] is physical attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions. The connection is fairly obvious,” he said.
He said the first incident of vandalism at Beth-El happened soon after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
“We’ve been saying for a while that there’s a been huge spike in anti-Semitism. The reported rate of anti-Semitic attacks has skyrocketed,” he claimed.
“And so you’ve got an entire community across the country, and here in Christchurch, who are feeling really vulnerable, really traumatised, and we’re calling upon the various authorities to actually take these threats seriously.
“Again, we are really calling upon influential people in New Zealand, specifically politicians, to really tone down the language they’re using. We have politicians supporting protesters, and what a surprise - a week later, attacks start.”
Kepes said New Zealand Jews were scared anti-Semitism would become “far more serious”.
The community had begun taking responsibility for its own security, he said.
[Police] are not taking [investigations into these incidents] far enough to find out how they’ve happened and who’s done them,” he said.
By Raphael Franks
