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While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and terror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred 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 diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in people – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the gunfire to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of belief.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of fear, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and loss we need each other now more than ever.

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

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