The Immediate Impact and Fear of the Bondi Shooting Is Giving Way to Rage and Division. It Is Imperative We Look For the Light.

As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

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

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and terror is shifting to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has failed us so acutely. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and love was the message of faith.

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert 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 six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more in order.

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

The reassurance 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 unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.