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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land 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 profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and compassion 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 disgustingly swiftly with division, blame and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

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 insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we need each other more than ever.

The reassurance of togetherness – the human glue 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 the community will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.