Arsonists thought high-profile Sydney man was asleep at home during attack, police say

Arsonists believed a prominent Jewish Australian was asleep with his family inside a home in Sydney’s east when they deliberately attacked it, police say.

The shocking information comes as NSW Police on Wednesday revealed they had charged a Sydney man with orchestrating a wave of antisemitic incidents in Sydney’s east and south in January this year.

The Dover Heights home once owned by Alex Ryvchin from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry was splashed with red paint, and cars outside were torched in the early hours of January 17.

“F--- JEWS” was sprayed on one burnt-out Mercedes.

Police have confirmed the attackers mistakenly believed Ryvchin was still living at the address with his family. The revelation backs Ryvchin’s fears the attack was not “one hell of a coincidence”.

“To target someone’s home, someone’s sanctuary, someone’s family, to endanger the lives of the good and decent Australians that live around here, to light a fire when people are sleeping in their homes,” he said in January. “There is an evil at work in this country, and we have to recognise that.”

Strike Force Pearl, the NSW Police’s antisemitism taskforce, announced on Wednesday that 27-year-old Tarek Zahabe, 27, had been charged with orchestrating the attack and three others in Sydney that month.

The first attack allegedly directed by Zahabe came on January 10 when two men, wearing black hoodies, were caught on CCTV allegedly vandalising the Southern Sydney Synagogue in the suburb of Allawah.

A swastika and the message “Hitler on top”, along with references to Allah and “Free Palestine”, were sprayed in red paint on the white bricks of the synagogue.

A court document provided to the Herald this month revealed police from Strike Force Pearl, set up in response to the spate of antisemitic attacks, soon set their sights on 26-year-old Kye Pickering from the Central Coast suburb of San Remo. On June 26, he was charged with displaying a Nazi symbol, damaging property and participating in a criminal group.

Police then swooped on Zahabe in mid-July.

Zahabe was charged with directing Pickering to carry out the attack in Allawah. He was also charged with directing the attack on Ryvchin’s home and two other incidents in Sydney’s east in January.

On January 21, Only About Children on Storey Street in Maroubra was set alight and sprayed with anti-Jewish messages. Premier Chris Minns called it a “vicious hate crime”.

One week later, Mount Sinai, a Jewish primary school on Runic Lane in Maroubra, was also graffitied.

Both men will front Downing Centre Local Court next month, Pickering on October 21 and Zahabe on October 30.

The development comes a month after Australia’s spy agency, ASIO, claimed a firebombing at Lewis Continental Kitchen, a Jewish business in Bondi Beach, in October 2024, and a second at Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue, weeks later, were the work of Iran.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had allegedly enlisted bikie Sayed Moosawi, who had in turn allegedly enlisted other men to carry out the attack in Sydney.

Moosawi denies the allegations, and ASIO said other attacks might be linked to Iran.

ASIO is investigating whether the attacks allegedly attributed to Zahabe were carried out on behalf of Iran.

Police would not confirm if Zahabe was allegedly acting on behalf of an offshore criminal mastermind – alleged drug runner Sayit Akca.

It was during the wave of attacks now allegedly attributed to Zahabe that police found a caravan packed with explosives on a roadside in Dural, along with directions to Sydney’s Great Synagogue.

Pearl’s investigators accused Akca of orchestrating more than a dozen of the antisemitic attacks – including the caravan – from a hideout in Turkey.

Police claim Akca planned to turn in the caravan to influence his own prosecution for drug running, sources said in March.

In an interview with ABC’s Four Corners, Akca admitted to the caravan plot, but denied involvement in the other attacks.

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