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As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial surprise, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because having faith in people – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, bewilderment and loss we need each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and society will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.