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While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of beach and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer mood seems, sadly, like no other.

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

Across the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, grief and terror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official 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 belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have experienced the animosity and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, divisive stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because believing in people – in our potential for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unsung.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

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

Unity, hope and compassion was the essence of faith.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity reacted so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, blame and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical chance to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the harmful rhetoric of division from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the hope and, importantly, answers to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? 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 threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were treated to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not weapons that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential actors.

In this city of profound beauty, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the ocean and the beaches – our communal areas – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of fear, outrage, sadness, confusion and grief we need 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 portents are that unity in public life and society will be elusive this extended, draining summer.