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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe 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 light and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we need each other now more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.