Soul Searching "Surf Rebel"
Rabbi Nachum Shifren

Let me tell you how it all started...The year was 1962, (the birth of the "Endless Summer") as a young junior high school student, I was hitchhiking to Malibu, thinking about the newly-made heroes I had just acquired, (Mickey Dora, Lance Carson) when it occurred to me that I was alone. No one in my family surfed, no one in my synagogue surfed, I'm was an outsider looking to belong - a real "rebel with a cause." For thirty years, I carried that thought with me. If we as Jews are disparate, isolated, then how much more so as Jewish surfers.

Then in 1987, an interesting thing happened. I met Paul Thompson, the brother of Shaun Thompson, at Gaviota State Beach where I was working as a lifeguard. He was just pulling his Zodiac out of the water after a great day of surf at the Hollister Ranch in northern Santa Barbara.

As is always my wont, I love talking to young people about how the surf was, board designs, attitudes about surf, life - the whole nine yards. When Paul introduced himself, we started a friendly dialogue and I told him of some great days I had surfed at Rincon when his brother Shaun was out and how I admired him as a real waterman and as a spokesman for our sport.

Then it occurred to me: I had an extra pair of tefillin in the back of my car, somewhere under the wetsuits and towels. What a great chance to do a mitzvah! So I suggested that he put them on and say "Shema" (a short passage said by Jews twice a day). Well, the truth is, I don't know if Paul had the time to comply with my enthusiastic request. But I suppose that was the day that started Jewish Surfers International.

Mates, the days of being in the desert are no longer. We will shortly be compiling an "active" list of all of you who have corresponded with us. The newly created JSI Newsletter promises to be a one-of-a-kind publication, the kind that will even raise the eyebrows of your bubbes and zaides! It will feature articles from our members from all over the world, together with their unique stories that makes them Jewish surfers.

The common thread will be the Jewishness that unites us. The great Jewish mystical work, the Zohar (Kabbalah) HaKodesh, tells wonderous stories of esoteric aspects of creation and water, all explaining why you "feel" different as a surfer. This is uncharted territory, but you'll be part of the revelations that JSI will give you as we try to make sense of two opposite worlds - the spiritual and the physical.

So paddle out with us. We welcome you into our family as we chart those "outer reefs". The take-offs are steep, the offshores are blowing, and you can only make the drop through your instinct (the kabbalaistic "nekuda p'nimit").

"...Those who go down to the sea...in mighty waters, they saw the works of G-d and His wonders in the deep..."

-Psalms 107:23

Aloha and Shalom ... great to have you aboard!

Nachum