The Initial Shock and Terror of the Bondi Shooting Is Giving Way to Anger and Division. We Must Seek Out the Hope.

While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and dread of faith-based persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples 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 gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

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

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

Witness the dangerous message of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics 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, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, confusion and grief 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 cohesion in public life and the community will be elusive this long, draining summer.