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While the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate 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 especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying fragility.

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

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

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 essence of belief.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful message of disunity from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential actors.

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

We yearn right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

The reassurance 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 cohesion in politics and society will be hard to find this long, draining summer.