🔗 Share this article

While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, grief and terror is segueing 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 reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

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

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

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to help others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Unity, hope and love was the essence of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look quite the same again.’

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous message of division from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above ocean and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other now more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, draining summer.