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While Australia winds down for a customary Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of mere ennui.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of initial shock, sorrow and terror is segueing to anger and bitter polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are attuned to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, vigorous government and institutional crackdown against antisemitism with the freedom to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in mankind is so deeply depleted. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the hatred and dread of religious and ethnic targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive views but little understanding at all of that profound fragility.

This is a time when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because believing in people – in our capacity for kindness – has let us down so acutely. 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 bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was laudably promoted by faith leaders. It was a message of love and tolerance – of bringing together rather than splitting apart in a moment of targeted violence.

Consistent with the meaning of Hanukah (illumination amid darkness), there was so much fitting evocation of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and love was the message of belief.

‘Our shared community spaces may not look exactly as they did again.’

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

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

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the probe was ongoing.

Politics has a daunting task to do when it comes to uniting a nation that is grieving and scared and seeking the light and, importantly, explanations to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a large public Hanukah event go ahead with such a grossly insufficient protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so openly and consistently warned of the danger of targeted attacks?

How rapidly we were subjected to that tired argument (or versions of it) that it’s individuals not guns that kill. Of course, each point are true. It’s possible to simultaneously seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep firearms away from its potential actors.

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

We yearn right now for comprehension 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 appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require 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 sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.