The unnamed woman, in her 60s, was walking back from evening services at Melbourne’s Temple Beth Israel when she was accosted by a man standing at the entrance of an apartment block.

The man, described as Caucasian and burly in his 40s with a small growth of hair, stared at the woman and yelled at her, “You Jewish scum, you will get what’s coming to you.” He then spat at her.

The woman was deeply shaken by the attack and kept on walking. She later reported the incident to the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), an Australian-Jewish civil rights organization.

“I will say this again: Antisemitism is real in Australia and it is getting worse by the day,” the ADC’s chair, Dvir Abramovich, said in a statement.

Abramovich continued: “This ugly episode, part of a broader pattern, could have ended in physical violence and not just verbal assault and spitting. It may be an uncomfortable truth for some, but the reality is that the rising wave of hatred against Jews here is becoming commonplace. Every Jew has a right to walk from a synagogue and be safe, and this palpable crisis, unfolding across the nation, is only getting worse with the number of incidents reported to the ADC on a scale I have not witnessed before.”