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As Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, sadly, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the national disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of immediate shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official fight against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I mourn, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural unity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Witness the harmful message of division from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired line (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we need each other now more than ever.

The reassurance of togetherness – 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 politics and society will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.