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As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of faith.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful message of division from longstanding agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

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 seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment 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 probably need most.

But tragically, all of the portents are that unity in politics and society will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.