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As Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere ennui.

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of initial shock, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so sorely diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the animosity and dread of faith-based targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has let us down so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme examples of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, 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, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably 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.

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

Unity, light and compassion was the message of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet segments of the Australian polity responded so nauseatingly quickly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

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

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

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

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of clear blue heavens above ocean and shore, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, confusion and grief we require each other now more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that cohesion in public life and society will be hard to find this extended, draining summer.