The Immediate Impact and Fear of the Bondi Attack Is Transitioning to Anger and Discord. It Is Imperative We Look For the Hope.

While Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, light and compassion was the message of belief.

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, confusion and grief we need each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of togetherness – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But tragically, all of the portents are that unity in public life and the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.