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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, grief and terror is shifting to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism 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 sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and fear of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

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

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and compassion was the message of faith.

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

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

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

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its potential actors.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in public life and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.