The Immediate Impact and Fear of the Bondi Attack Is Giving Way to Anger and Division. It Is Imperative We Seek Out the Light.

While the nation winds down for a customary 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 atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

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 experienced the hatred and fear of faith-based persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

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

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

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 help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the message of faith.

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Witness the dangerous message of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient 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 threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, sadness, confusion and grief we need each other more than ever.

The comfort of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.