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While the nation winds down for a traditional Christmas holiday across languorous days of beach and blistering heat accompanied by the background of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic understatement to describe the collective disposition after the antisemitic violent assault on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah celebrations as one of simple discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep division.

Those who had previously missed the often voiced fears of Australian Jews are now highly attuned. Just as, they are attuned to balancing the need for a much more immediate, vigorous official fight 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 humanity 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 land or anywhere else.

And yet the algorithms keep churning out at us the banal hot takes of those with blistering, polarizing views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I lament, because having faith in humanity – in our potential for kindness – has failed us so painfully. Something else, something higher, is required.

And yet from the atrocity of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human decency. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – police officers and paramedics, those who charged into the danger to aid others, some recognised but for the most part unnamed and unheralded.

When the barrier cordon still fluttered wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, religious and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and tolerance – of unifying rather than splitting apart in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of Hanukah (light amid darkness), there was so much fitting reference of the need for lightness.

Togetherness, light and compassion was the message of belief.

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

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so disgustingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the darkness, using the atrocity as a calculating opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the harmful rhetoric of disunity from veteran fomenters of societal discord, exploiting the attack before the site was even cold. Then consider the statements of political figures while the probe was ongoing.

Government has a formidable job to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and frightened and seeking the light and, not least, explanations to so many uncertainties.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was judged as likely, did such a significant open-air Hanukah celebration go ahead with such a grossly inadequate protection? Like how could the alleged killers have multiple firearms in the family home when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

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

In this city of immense splendor, of clear blue heavens above sea and sand, the ocean and the beaches – our shared community spaces – may not seem quite the same again to the multitude who’ve observed that iconic Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s horrific violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling holiday gathering plans. Quiet contemplation will seem more appropriate.

But this is perhaps counterintuitively counterintuitive. For in these days of fear, anger, melancholy, 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 probably need most.

But sadly, all of the portents are that cohesion in politics and society will be elusive this long, enervating summer.