The Initial Impact and Terror of the Bondi Shooting Is Giving Way to Rage and Discord. It Is Imperative We Seek Out the Light.

As the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and terror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we require each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.