On Sunday, people around Australia lit a candle.

Whether this is the time you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas or simply a break at the end of one year and the beginning of the next, that candle is an acknowledgment of the shadow cast over the season by two men’s deadly antisemitic rampage at Bondi Beach.

A woman lights a candle to pay her respects to the lives lost in the Bondi shooting.Credit: Jessica Hromas

The consequences of such violence are beyond repair. At times this year it has seemed that darkness is all around, from the rising death tolls in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan to the assassination of right-wing US activist Charlie Kirk and the murder of police officers Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart-Hottart near Porepunkah in north-east Victoria.

The most-watched court case of this year, Erin Patterson’s trial in Morwell for the murder of members of her own extended family,........

© The Age