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As Australia winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, unfortunately, like none before.

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

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most postcard picturesque of Australian cities – a tenor of initial surprise, sorrow and horror is shifting to fury and bitter division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous government and institutional crackdown 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 faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is especially so for those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced the hatred and fear of faith-based targeting on this land or elsewhere.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the banal instant opinions of those with blistering, divisive stances but little understanding at all of that terrifying vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a stronger spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, a greater power, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have witnessed such extreme instances of human goodness. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who ran towards the danger to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still waved in the wind all about Bondi, the imperative of community, faith-based and ethnic unity was laudably championed by religious figures. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a moment of targeted violence.

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

Togetherness, hope and compassion was the message of belief.

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

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

Some elected officials moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s migration rules.

Witness the dangerous message of division from longstanding fomenters of societal discord, capitalizing on the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then read the words of political figures while the probe was still active.

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

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as probable, did such a significant public Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of targeted attacks?

How quickly we were subjected to that tired line (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that cause death. Of course, both things are valid. It’s feasible to simultaneously pursue new ways to prevent hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its potential perpetrators.

In this city of profound beauty, of clear azure skies above ocean and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our communal areas – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so jarringly out of place with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for understanding 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 counterintuitively against instinct. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, sadness, bewilderment and loss we require each other more than ever.

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

But sadly, all of the indicators are that cohesion in politics and the community will be hard to find this long, enervating summer.