Jewish students in Sydney returned to school on Friday with a heightened security presence, days after police said they foiled a planned antisemitic attack in the city using a trailer filled with explosives.

A highly concerning spate of "evil" antisemitic attacks have been occurring across Australia - particularly in Sydney and Melbourne - since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war.

Sydney restaurateur Judith Lewis couldn’t save the mezuzah, a framed parchment inked with Hebrew prayers, that was hanging in her family’s café when arsonists set it alight in the early hours one Sunday in late October.