The Initial Impact and Fear of the Bondi Attack Is Transitioning to Rage and Discord. It Is Imperative We Seek Out the Light.

While Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

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

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of faith.

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

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

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, 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 family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other more than ever.

The comfort of community – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.