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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared 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 public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, anger, sadness, confusion and loss 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 probably need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.