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As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, grief and terror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic 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 mankind is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and cultural solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for 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 open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

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

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and grief we need each other more than ever.

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

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