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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, light and love was the message of faith.

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

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so nauseatingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the harmful message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above ocean and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of fear, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we need each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of community – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.