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While Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat set to the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and horror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

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

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to aid 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, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, hope and love was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with division, blame and accusation.

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

Observe the harmful message of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we need each other now more than ever.

The comfort 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 unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.