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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate shock, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

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 animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind 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 bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, 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. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we require each other now more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.