🔗 Share this article

While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the collective disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, grief and terror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of faith.

‘Our public places may not look quite the same again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient 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 rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this city of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and grief 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 tragically, all of the portents are that unity in public life and society will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.