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While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and blistering 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 understatement to describe the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound 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 gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, light and love was the essence of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful message of division from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we require each other now more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and society will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.