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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate surprise, sorrow and terror is shifting 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 attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

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

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into 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 community, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Observe the dangerous message of division from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers 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 inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, both things are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude 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 family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, anger, sadness, confusion and grief we require each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of togetherness – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.