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While the nation settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred 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 sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

‘Our public places may not look quite the same again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound 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 multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we need each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and society will be hard to find this long, draining summer.