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As Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and bitter polarization.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in humanity is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such profound examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the essence of belief.

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

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of profound beauty, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, melancholy, confusion and loss we require 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 cohesion in public life and society will be hard to find this long, draining summer.