As the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.
It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.
Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.
Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official fight against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against genocide.
If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.
And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.
This is a time when I regret not having a greater faith. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.
And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.
When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.
Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.
Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of belief.
‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’
And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so nauseatingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.
Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.
Witness the harmful message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.
Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope 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 event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?
How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential actors.
In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.
We long right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or nature.
This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more in order.
But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of fear, anger, sadness, bewilderment and grief we require each other more than ever.
The comfort of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.
But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.
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