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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

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

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and terror is segueing to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, light and love was the essence of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look quite the same again.’

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

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

Witness the dangerous message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the hope and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

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

The reassurance of togetherness – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.