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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly 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 blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so acutely. 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 courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

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

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

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – 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 comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, confusion and loss we require 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 indicators are that unity in politics and the community will be elusive this extended, draining summer.