The Immediate Shock and Fear of the Bondi Shooting Is Giving Way to Rage and Division. It Is Imperative We Look For the Hope.

While the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial shock, grief and terror is segueing to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

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

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous message of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired 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 pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we need each other more than ever.

The reassurance of community – the human glue 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 society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.