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While Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a significant oversimplification to characterize the collective disposition after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to anger and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so sorely depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

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

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so acutely. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to aid fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, light and compassion was the essence of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape responded so disgustingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and accusation.

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

Observe the dangerous message of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and keep guns away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound 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 multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

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

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of fear, anger, melancholy, bewilderment and grief 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 likely need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, draining summer.