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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 background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to describe the collective disposition after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

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

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying fragility.

This is a period when I lament not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the police tape still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

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

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

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous message of disunity from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the investigation was still active.

Government has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, importantly, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are valid. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in culture or nature.

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

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

The reassurance of togetherness – the binding force of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

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