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While Australia settles into for a customary Christmas holiday across slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and cicada song, this year the country’s summer atmosphere feels, unfortunately, like none before.

It would be a dramatic oversimplification to describe the collective temperament after the anti-Jewish violent assault on Australian Jews during the beachside Hanukah celebrations as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but especially than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tone of immediate shock, grief and horror is segueing to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the frequently expressed concerns of the Jewish community are now acutely aware. Similarly, they are sensitive to balancing the need for a much more immediate, energetic government and institutional fight against antisemitism with the right to demonstrate against mass atrocities.

If ever there was a time for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our faith in mankind is so deeply diminished. This is particularly so for those of us lucky never to have endured the hatred and dread of faith-based targeting on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep churning out at us the trite instant opinions of those with inflammatory, polarizing stances but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a time when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s potential for compassion – has let us down so painfully. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such profound instances of human goodness. The heroism of individuals. The selflessness of bystanders. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who ran towards the gunfire to help fellow humans, some recognised but for the most part anonymous and unsung.

When the barrier cordon still waved wildly all about Bondi, the imperative of social, faith-based and cultural solidarity was admirably championed by faith leaders. It was a call of compassion and acceptance – of unifying rather than dividing in a time of targeted violence.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (illumination amid darkness), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for hope.

Togetherness, 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 responded so nauseatingly swiftly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and recrimination.

Some elected officials gravitated straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to challenge Australia’s immigration policies.

Witness the dangerous rhetoric of division from longstanding fomenters of Australian racial division, exploiting the massacre before the site was even cold. Then read the statements of political figures while the investigation was ongoing.

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

Like why, when the official terror alert was judged as probable, did such a large open-air Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully insufficient security presence? Like how could the alleged killers have six guns in the residence when the domestic intelligence organisation has so publicly and consistently alerted of the danger of antisemitic violence?

How quickly we were treated to that cliched argument (or versions of it) that it’s people not guns that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s possible to simultaneously pursue new ways to stop hate-fuelled violence and prevent firearms away from its possible perpetrators.

In this metropolis of immense splendor, of pristine blue heavens above sea and shore, the water and the beaches – 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 violence.

We long right now for comprehension and significance, for family, and perhaps for the consolation of aesthetics in art or nature.

This weekend many Australians are cancelling Christmas party plans. Quiet contemplation will feel more in order.

But this is perhaps somewhat against instinct. For in these days of anxiety, outrage, sadness, confusion and loss we require each other now more than ever.

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

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and society will be elusive this extended, draining summer.