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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

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

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s 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 examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

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

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid darkness), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, hope and love was the message of belief.

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

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

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

Witness the harmful message of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a daunting 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 uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

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

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and grief we require each other 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.