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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic unity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, light and love was the message of belief.

‘Our public places may not appear quite the same again.’

And yet elements of the political landscape responded so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, exploiting 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 uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of fear, outrage, melancholy, bewilderment and grief we need each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that unity in politics and society will be elusive this extended, enervating summer.