The Immediate Shock and Fear of the Bondi Shooting Is Transitioning to Rage and Discord. It Is Imperative We Look For the Light.

While the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is especially 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 algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

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. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of faith.

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, sadness, confusion and grief we need each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be elusive this long, draining summer.