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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and terror is shifting to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, 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 lucky never to have experienced the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or elsewhere.

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

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for compassion – has let us down so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror 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 paramedics, those who charged into the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

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

Some politicians gravitated straight for the darkness, using tragedy as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the harmful message of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear blue heavens above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – 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 bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

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

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

But tragically, all of the portents are that cohesion in public life and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.