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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

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

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, religious and cultural solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

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

Unity, hope and love was the essence of belief.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the harmful message of division from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting 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 judged as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched line (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of clear blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

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