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As the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the hatred and dread of faith-based targeting on this land or anywhere else.

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

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, religious and cultural solidarity was admirably promoted by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (illumination amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and love was the essence of belief.

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

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful message of disunity from longstanding agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the light and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

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

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more in order.

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

The comfort 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 cohesion in public life and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.