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While the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and fear of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in art or nature.

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

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

The comfort 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 cohesion in politics and society will be elusive this long, draining summer.