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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest 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 particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s potential 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 profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. 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 unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, light and love was the message of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound splendor, of clear azure skies 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 incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we need 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 cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.