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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

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

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred 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 depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment 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.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of belief.

‘Our public places may not look exactly as they did again.’

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

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, 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 somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.