🔗 Share this article

As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, grief and horror is shifting to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and dread of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

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

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

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

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

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 woefully 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 danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Of course, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other more than ever.

The reassurance 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 cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, draining summer.