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While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

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

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time 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.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful message of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers 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 subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and grief 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 likely need most.

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