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As Australia settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and blistering heat set to the background of sporting matches and cicada song, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the national temperament after the anti-Jewish terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during the beachside Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tone of initial shock, grief and horror is shifting to anger and bitter division.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional crackdown against anti-Jewish hatred with the right to demonstrate against genocide.

If ever there was a moment 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 hatred and dread of faith-based persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep spewing at us the banal hot takes of those with inflammatory, polarizing views but no sense at all of that profound fragility.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger faith. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have witnessed such profound instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the danger to help others, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the necessity of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and acceptance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

Consistent with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid gloom), there was so much fitting reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, hope and love was the message of faith.

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

And yet elements of the political landscape reacted so nauseatingly swiftly with division, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some politicians gravitated straight for the pessimism, using the atrocity as a calculating chance to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of Australian racial division, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were subjected to that cliched argument (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Of course, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of immense beauty, of pristine azure skies above ocean and sand, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look entirely familiar again to the multitude who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the consolation of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

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

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

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