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While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so sorely diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

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

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, light and love was the message of faith.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly quickly with division, blame and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn 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 cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

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

But sadly, all of the portents are that unity in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, draining summer.