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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

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

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, light and compassion was the message of belief.

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

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long 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 cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of fear, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of community – 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 politics and the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.