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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and accusation.

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful message of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for family, 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 seem more in order.

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

The comfort of community – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.