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While the nation winds down for a customary Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat accompanied by the soundtrack of sporting matches and insect sounds, this year the country’s summer mood seems, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Across the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep division.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a national listening, 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 persecution on this land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the trite 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 greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. Emergency personnel – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid others, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of compassion and acceptance – of bringing together rather than dividing 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, hope and love was the message of belief.

‘Our public places may not look quite the same again.’

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

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

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding agitators of societal discord, capitalizing on the attack before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a formidable job to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the hope and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a large public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the security agency has so openly and repeatedly warned of the threat of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to at the same time pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and keep firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, 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 incongruous with last weekend’s obscene bloodshed.

We long right now for comprehension and meaning, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of aesthetics in art or the natural world.

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

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, anger, melancholy, confusion and loss we need each other more than ever.

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

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