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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

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

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is shifting to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of faith.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and grief we require each other more than ever.

The comfort of togetherness – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

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