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While Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and horror is shifting to fury and bitter polarization.

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

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of faith.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants 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 seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, 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 obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in art or the natural world.

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

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

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

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