Free Surf 95

Dudes, Mellow!

YOU'RE BLACK!" exclaimed Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz. Diminutive and tan, with a thatch of gray hair, the 86-year-old San Diego physician stood barefoot in a Tel Aviv apartment wearing khaki shorts and a white T-shirt emblazoned with a logo for SURFING FOR PEACE, Doc's fledgling initiative to bring Israeli and Palestinian youth together under the banner of brotherly shredding. We were at 28-year-old Israeli surfer Arthur Rashkovan's place, a few blocks from the break at Hilton Beach, on the Mediterranean coast. Doc was fresh from a nap; by the time he emerged from the bedroom, I'd spent several hours hanging out with soft-spoken, laconic Arthur, a liquor distributor and surf magazine editor, and two of Doc's adult sons—David, 48, and Joshua, 32, both as lanky as their father is short. Joshua, a filmmaker, sported a mullet, a porkpie hat, and tattoos from neck to feet; musician David looked more conventional, with glasses and flecks of gray in his hair.

"It's Jimmie Briggs!" yelled Arthur. "Jimmie Briggs!" added Joshua. "Jimmie Briggs, you're black!" responded Doc, smiling, his arms open wide to give me a hug. Doc's not shy; we'd been speaking for months on the phone, but both Israel and the surfing community are mostly populated with white faces. He seemed delighted by the appearance of a six-foot-three, dreadlocked black dude from the Bronx.

It was a hot, early October night in Israel, less than a week before the launch of Surfing for Peace, and the air seemed charged and slightly hectic. Back in Southern California, Doc's dream had seemed simple: Use surfing as a bridge between Arabs and Jews, get kids to learn the sport alongside their so-called enemies. They'd start with a concert, some surf clinics, and who knows, maybe it would grow into a foundation. To launch the effort, he signed up two of the biggest names in the sport: eight-time world champion Kelly Slater and 23-year-old Hawaiian big-wave wunderkind Makua Rothman, who at age 18 rode a 66-footer.

The plan was to stage a week of surf clinics in Tel Aviv and Gaza, culminating with a big Friday-night concert. Kelly and Makua would take the stage with the popular Israeli roots-rock band Malca Baya. David Paskowitz had written a song called "One Voice" for the effort, and, serendipitously, the peace organization OneVoice International, led by a New York–based Mexican Jew named Daniel Lubetzky, happened to be staging its own rally the day before the Surfing for Peace concert, with simultaneous shows in Tel Aviv and Jericho headlined by Canadian rocker Bryan "Cuts like a Knife" Adams. The timing was perfect. It would be huge. Concerts! Surfing! Rock Stars! Peace!

Of course, somebody had to pay for all this. Kelly is sponsored by Quiksilver, and the bulk of the money for the Surfing for Peace launch was coming from Quiksilver's Israeli distributor, Sakal Sports, run by surfer and former Israeli commando Haim Sakal. Kelly was the linchpin to everyone having a successful week. Not only is he part Arab (his great-grandfather was Syrian), but some of his most fervent followers come from the only Jewish nation in the world. There was just one problem: He was flying in from competitions in Europe, and nobody knew for sure when.

"We don't know if he's in Mundaka or France or what," explained Joshua.

The Paskowitzes were also increasingly worried about how it all would play out. They'd met with Sakal earlier in the day and left feeling that the week's events weren't going to be as pure as they'd envisioned. Instead of low-key surf clinics, they were starting to see a media circus.

"Dorian, you don't understand what I've been trying to tell you," Arthur said to Doc. "I've been here since you and David left in August trying to make this happen. We've only had two months to pull it all together."

"I understand that, Arthur," Doc replied. "But I've got Haim's word that it's going to happen the way we want it."

I sat flipping through a Hebrew-language magazine until things cooled down and Doc went to lie back down. One thing was becoming evident: Launching a peace movement required focus and teamwork.

And these guys were surfers.