This isn't just about Bondi, it's about the Australia we want to be |
Guest Echidna columnist John-Paul Moloney shares his experiences of Bondi's unique close-knit community.
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And here we are pondering one of those unfathomably tragic events, the kind so hard to comprehend that we will remember where we were when we first heard the news.
Port Arthur? I was working on the checkout at Woolies. September 11? Driving to my girlfriend's place.
On Sunday it was through a message to a family group chat from my sister, telling us "things are bad in Bondi but we're safe".
That sister, originally from Canberra, has made a life up in Sydney, lucking in with a brilliant bloke for a husband and through him a wonderful extended family.
They are as Bondi as they come; boys did their Catholic schooling at Waverley College, played their rugby with Randwick and progressed from nippers to Bondi Surf Club stalwarts.
My brother-in-law can't walk 50 metres along that beach without being stopped for a chat.
In a place famously crawling with tourists, drawn there by an idyllic vision of Australia, it has always struck me how much of a community feel Bondi has.
It feels as "local" and connected as any country town I've visited, even as the tourists breeze in and out in their millions each year.
My colleague Jen Melocco, a Bondi local for the past 20 years (so possibly still considered a blow-in by some of the craggy, tanned old blokes in their speedos) wrote about this yesterday.
"When you live in Bondi Beach you recognise that the neighbourhood is not just your own, but also one enjoyed by people across Sydney, the country and the world. And we're good with that."
And you only have to spend a little time there to know that the Jewish community is integral to that atmosphere. For more than a 100 years, waves of migrants - including those fleeing from the Holocaust - have settled there and felt safe.
It's where a visitor........