The Initial Impact and Fear of the Bondi Attack Is Transitioning to Anger and Discord. It Is Imperative We Look For the Light.

As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, grief and terror is shifting to anger and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because believing in people – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of faith.

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Witness the harmful rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate 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 rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, confusion and loss we require each other more than ever.

The reassurance 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 cohesion in public life and the community will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.