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As the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the national disposition after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, grief and horror is segueing to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a far more urgent, energetic government and institutional fight against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, divisive views but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I lament not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in humanity – in our capacity for kindness – 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. First responders – law enforcement and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of belief.

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

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

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

Witness the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the hope and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are valid. It’s possible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and prevent guns away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve observed that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.