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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like no other.

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

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of the nation's urban centers – a tone of immediate surprise, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous official fight against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and fear of religious and ethnic persecution on this land or elsewhere.

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

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because believing in humanity – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has failed us so painfully. A different source, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The bravery of those present. Emergency personnel – police officers and medical staff, those who ran towards the danger to aid others, some recognised 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 cultural unity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate evocation of the need for hope.

Unity, light and compassion was the essence of belief.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, blame and recrimination.

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

Witness the harmful message of division from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was ongoing.

Government has a daunting job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and frightened and looking for the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the official terror alert was assessed as probable, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a woefully insufficient protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, each point are valid. It’s feasible to at the same time pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine azure skies above sea and sand, the water and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not seem entirely familiar again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We yearn right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

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

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

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