The Immediate Shock and Terror of the Bondi Attack Is Giving Way to Anger and Division. It Is Imperative We Look For the Light.

As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

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

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural unity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, hope and love was the essence of faith.

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful message of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.