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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

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 medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural unity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of belief.

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

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

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

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

The reassurance of community – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we probably need most.

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