🔗 Share this article

As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of faith.

‘Our public places may not appear exactly as they did again.’

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

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers 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 inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

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

The reassurance of community – the binding force 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 hard to find this long, enervating summer.