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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by 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 understatement to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple 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 horror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the message of faith.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

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

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

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