A group of haredi teenagers miraculously escaped an attempted ramming attack in the St. Kilda East area of Melbourne, after passengers in a car chased them while shouting antisemitic curses and waving their hands.
The incident took place yesterday, only about 100 meters from the "Adat Israel" synagogue, which was set on fire with a Molotov cocktail over a year ago.
According to security camera footage published in local media, the boys were seen waiting to cross the road when a white SUV stopped near them.
When they spotted the vehicle, the boys began to run away and quickly crossed the road. In the footage, the vehicle can be seen making a sharp U-turn toward them and almost running over one of them.
One of the boys managed to record the license plate of the vehicle, which, according to reports in the Jewish community, was a stolen vehicle.
Haim Klein, the father of one of the boys from the Adat Israel community, said his son told him that two people in a car shouted "Heil Hitler," gave a Nazi salute and threatened to stab them. He said the car chased the boys for about five minutes as they tried to escape.
"They were forced to run and hide, while the passengers chased them in the car, searched for them and tried to drive towards them," Klein told the local Herald Sun newspaper. "This was a deliberate and targeted act of intimidation and hatred that put young lives in immediate danger and left the community shaken."