🔗 Share this article

As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

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

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, grief and terror is shifting to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic unity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and love was the essence of belief.

‘Our public places may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and grief we need each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.