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As Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire 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 imperative of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light 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 reacted so nauseatingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Observe the harmful message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics 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 official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

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

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

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

The reassurance of togetherness – the binding force 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 society will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.