Israeli FM urges Jews to move to Israel a week after Sydney attack

Floral tributes outside Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Steve Markham)

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called on Sunday for Jews in Western countries to move to Israel to escape rising antisemitism, one week after 15 were shot dead at a Jewish event in Sydney.

“Jews have the right to live in safety everywhere. But we see and fully understand what is happening, and we have a certain historical experience. Today, Jews are being hunted across the world,” Saar said at a public candle lighting marking the last day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

“Today I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel! Come home!” Saar said at the ceremony, held with leaders of Jewish communities and organisations worldwide.

Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israeli leaders have repeatedly denounced a surge in antisemitism in Western countries and accused their governments of failing to curb it.

Australian authorities have said the December 14 attack on a Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach was inspired by the ideology of the Islamic State jihadist group.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Western governments to better protect their Jewish citizens.

“I demand that Western governments do what is necessary to fight antisemitism and provide the required safety and security for Jewish communities worldwide,” Netanyahu said in a video address.

In October, Saar accused British authorities of failing to take action to curb a “toxic wave of antisemitism” following an attack outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, in which two people were killed and four wounded.

According to Israel’s 1950 “Law of Return”, any Jewish person in the world is entitled to settle in Israel (a process known in Hebrew as aliyah, or “ascent”) and acquire Israeli citizenship. The law also applies to individuals who have at least one Jewish grandparent.