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As Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate 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 dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic unity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating 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 crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and loss 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 public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.