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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

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

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is shifting to anger and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

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

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

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

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

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of belief.

‘Our public places may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the harmful message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

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

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, anger, sadness, confusion and loss we need 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 portents are that cohesion in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.