Two buildings belonging to the Adass Israel Synagogue, at Ripponlea in Melbourne's southeast, were gutted in a blaze on December 6, 2024.
Synagogue board member Benjamin Klein has told the anti-Semitism royal commission that grant application letters were sent to local, state and federal governments in 2023 and 2024.
"We also sent out a letter to Mark Dreyfus, at the time who was attorney-general, and we were unsuccessful," Mr Klein told the commission on Tuesday.
Mr Klein said technicalities and "a lot of red tape" complicated the application process.
"It was definitely a challenging time to try to get funding and we were unsuccessful," he said.
The federal government allotted $57.5 million over three years to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in 2023 to be used to bolster security for the Jewish community.
In May 2024, the Victorian government established the Jewish Community Security Infrastructure Program, which offers up to $200,000 funding to improve security for Jewish community organisations and facilities.
The synagogue had since hired a full-time grant writer to help secure funding, Mr Klein revealed.
Following the firebombing, the federal government announced more than $30 million in funding to help the rebuild, which Mr Klein described as a "lifesaver".
"We can stay there for the next 50, 100, 150 years, we'll have somewhere for the community," he said.
The state government also pledged $100,000 to kickstart a donation drive to help reconstruction efforts.
The doors of the temple are expected to remain closed until 2029 while it is restored.
Counter-terrorism police have charged three men over the attack.
In August, Australia's spy agency revealed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps orchestrated the attack.
Mr Klein described the synagogue as the heartbeat and the centre of the community and said his wife could not bring herself to drive past the site for six months after the fire.
"Good Aussie people" were fleeing Australia to move to Israel over safety fears, he said.
The royal commission was called after 15 people were killed and dozens more injured when two gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah event at Sydney's Bondi Beach on December 14.
Hearings in Melbourne this week are expected to probe security risk assessments and the relationship between law enforcement agencies and Jewish security groups.
Chief Rabbi Levi Wolff from Sydney's Central Synagogue told the inquiry he was subjected to messages of abuse and threats of violence "almost daily".
"I have become accustomed to threats of violence," he said.
"That should disturb every Australian. That shouldn't disturb Jewish Australians only."
Many Jews feel like they needed to justify their place in Australia, he said.
South Sydney Synagogue president George Foster suggested times had changed in the past few years.
"It was wonderful to live here until the 7th of October (2023)," he said, referring to the terrorist attack led by Hamas in southern Israel.
Born in Budapest to Holocaust survivors, leaving Australia was "a thought that never occurred" to Mr Foster until 2023, he said.
"I never thought I would see such a thing in Australia," Dr Foster said.
Australian Council of Jewish Schools co-chair Stephen Rothman, Rabbinical Council of Victoria president Rabbi Moshe Kahn and Victoria Police Superintendent Amanda Bowden are among others listed to speak at the inquiry later on Tuesday.
10°C