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While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, grief and horror is shifting to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite 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 stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the essence of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not appear quite the same again.’

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

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

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and the community will be elusive this long, draining summer.