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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, grief and terror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and compassion 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 nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – 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 horrific violence.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in politics and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.