The Immediate Shock and Terror of the Bondi Attack Is Transitioning to Rage and Discord. We Must Seek Out the Hope.

As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and terror is segueing to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

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

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of faith.

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, 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 tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.