The Immediate Shock and Fear of the Bondi Shooting Is Giving Way to Rage and Discord. We Must Seek Out the Hope.

As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, grief and terror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid darkness), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and love was the essence of belief.

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

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

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of fear, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of community – the human glue 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 elusive this long, draining summer.