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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

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

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, grief and terror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or anywhere else.

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

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because believing in people – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. 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 anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking 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 public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully 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 threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic 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 solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these times of fear, anger, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other now more than ever.

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

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