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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

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

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

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

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural unity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and love was the message of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not appear exactly as they did again.’

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

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

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

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and grief we need each other 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 public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.