The Initial Shock and Fear of the Bondi Attack Is Giving Way to Anger and Discord. We Must Seek Out the Light.

While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and medical staff, 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 social, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, melancholy, confusion and loss we need each other now more than ever.

The comfort of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But tragically, all of the portents are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.