The identity of a person of interest in an arson attack on a car bearing a Hanukkah sign outside a rabbi's home has been revealed, as police keep an open mind over the motive.
Victorian police want to speak with 47-year-old John Argento, who also goes by John Seckold, after early investigations suggested he may be able to assist.
A photo of Mr Argento was released on Friday after a car with a billboard celebrating Hanukkah was set alight outside a rabbi's house early on Christmas day.
No one was inside the vehicle at the time but a woman and three children were evacuated from the house as a precaution.
Mr Argento is a "strong" person of interest who police believe can quickly resolve this matter, Assistant Commissioner Chris Gilbert said.
"Our responsibility, at this stage, is to make sure that we don't take anything off the table," he told reporters on Friday.
"We look at it, and certainly, if it was racially or religiously motivated, we will follow that angle, and if it's not then we'll sort out the matters as they are."
Police say there is no indication Mr Argento poses a specific risk to others, nor are they aware of any other specific threats to the Jewish or wider community in the wake of Bondi.
They also want to talk to Mr Argento about a car that was broken into in a nearby street about 20 minutes after the alleged arson.
Mr Gilbert said the man of interest has a history of lighting fires but is also wanted on warrants for allegedly using a stolen credit card, other property offences and stealing from cars.
Mr Argento, a 185cm tall, thin man with blue eyes, grey hair and a fair complexion, lives a transient lifestyle and is known to frequent Melbourne's inner southern and northern suburbs.
Australian Federal Police on Friday also charged an 18-year-old with trespassing and defacing commonwealth property, and performing Nazi salutes in public.
The man allegedly put up Nationalist Socialist Network stickers at a Canberra shopping centre and performed a Nazi salute when confronted by a member of the public in October.
He is also accused of trespassing at the Australian National University multiple times in August to put up the stickers and performed another Nazi salute at a different shopping centre on December 12.
Police searched a Weston home on Christmas Eve and seized multiple devices and different types of stickers that read "white man fight back" and other racist slogans.
This comes two months after a neo-Nazi assembly outside NSW parliament and less than a fortnight after Islamic State-inspired gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people.
The alleged Melbourne arson was designed to frighten Jews for being visibly Jewish, Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said.
"After Bondi, and with the number of recent threats and investigations around the country, Australia has to treat anti-Semitism as a public safety issue, not a niche community concern," he said.
A federal royal commission or an equivalent national inquiry with real powers into the Bondi attack and wider anti-Semitism crisis is the only way the nation can get the truth, accountability and lasting reform, Mr Leibler said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has resisted calling a royal commission in the wake of the Bondi mass shooting, instead backing a NSW inquiry and prioritising a faster but more limited review of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
The Victorian government has promised to follow NSW's footsteps to crack down on hate crimes and grant police the power to veto protests after designated terror attacks.
NSW Police late on Christmas Eve moved to ban protest rallies from key metropolitan areas in Sydney following the December 14 Bondi attack.
