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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official fight against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in people – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, 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 waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

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

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened 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 large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same 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 comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.