Dr. Dorian Paskowitz was a Jewish physician and an unconventional guy from the United States who raised his large family in a trailer and who brought surfing to the Middle East.
The unconventional American Jewish physician and surfer Dorian Doc Paskowitz died earlier this month on November 10 at an old age. He started a surfing Odyssey with his family, a wife and camper full of kids, and came to Israel in 1956 bringing with him the first surfboard which he showed to locals on the Frishman Beach in Tel Aviv.
Circle of Peace in Tel Aviv. Sending doc off in the traditional surfer way.
By 1957, with a failing marriage, he’d moved to Israel to live on a kibbutz. He started teaching lifeguards how to surf.
Years later, he came back to Israel with a message of peace, showing how surf can unite people, even Israelis and Palestinians.
He formed Surfers for Peace with Kelly Slater in 2007, and some years later I met surfer Grant Shilling in Tel Aviv carrying this torch of giving Gazans boards for surfing.
Raskovin and many other Israelis are longing to make a bridge of peace in the Middle East –– whether it’s done with a longboard or a short one.
Raskovin plans on meeting with Lebanese surfers in Marseille, France. “Our bigger project is the Med Surf Cup to collect people from all over the Mediterranean –– a network of surfers in constant dialogue.”
Today Doc’s mission rings true in Israel where surfers like Arthur Rashkovan run surfing coexistence programs in the Mediterranean. This past Friday Israeli surfers came together to build a surfer’s ring at sea to pay tribute to their beloved Doc who was known to have said:
“First I’m a surfer, then a Jew, then a doctor.
Lower photo via @pitchon
Author: Karin Kloosterman
Karin Kloosterman is an award-winning journalist and publisher that founded Green Prophet to unite a prosperous Middle East. She shows through her work that positive, inspiring dialogue creates action that impacts people, business and planet. She has published in thought-leading newspapers and magazines globally, owns an IoT tech chip patent, and is part of teams that build world-changing products to make agriculture and our planet more sustainable. Reach out directly to [email protected]
