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While Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national temperament after the antisemitic violent assault on Australian Jews during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

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

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

This is a time when I lament not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural unity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a call of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a time of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of belief.

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

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is grieving and scared and looking for the light and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently warned of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that cause death. Naturally, each point are true. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its possible actors.

In this city of immense beauty, of clear azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for understanding and significance, 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 seem more in order.

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

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in politics and the community will be elusive this long, enervating summer.