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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment 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 social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, hope and love was the message of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly swiftly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we need each other 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 society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.