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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

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

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

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

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

‘Our public places may not appear exactly as they did again.’

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

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of fear, outrage, sadness, confusion and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.