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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during languorous days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like no other.

It would be a significant understatement to characterize the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, sorrow and horror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Just as, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to peacefully protest against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but no sense at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for kindness – has let us down so acutely. A different source, a greater power, is needed.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound examples of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was laudably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of belief.

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

And yet segments of the political landscape reacted so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical chance to question Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the harmful message of disunity from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Politics has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and scared and looking for the light and, importantly, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, each point are valid. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this city of immense splendor, of clear azure skies above sea and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific bloodshed.

We yearn right now for understanding and meaning, for family, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will seem more in order.

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