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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack 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 tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, hope and love was the message of faith.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – 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 consolation of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, confusion and loss we need each other more than ever.

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

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