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While Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we need each other more than ever.

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