🔗 Share this article

As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national 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 postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate shock, grief and terror is shifting to anger and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and dread of faith-based persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

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

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and love was the message of belief.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so nauseatingly 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 immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – 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 bloodshed.

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

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

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

The reassurance of togetherness – 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 society will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.