The Immediate Shock and Fear of the Bondi Attack Is Transitioning to Anger and Division. We Must Seek Out the Light.

While Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time 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 endured the animosity and dread of faith-based targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

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

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of belief.

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

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of division from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

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

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and society will be elusive this long, draining summer.