Showing results by author "Nachum Shifren" in All Categories

Where the Torah meets the surf, Surfers Who Don’t Surf is six decades of surf adventures and memories from the Surfing Rabbi—Nachum Shifren. This book travels from the 1960s to the twenty-first century, Malibu to Mexico, Hawaii to Puerto Rico, and details an eclectic cast of characters famous and anonymous that includes: Tom Zahn, Miki “Da Cat” Dora, Marilyn Monroe, Honolulu Lulu, Pat Tobin, Mike Doyle, surfing’s Calamity Jane, Indo Dan, and many other characters you might expect and not expect.

Growing up under the spell of surfdoms coveted mecca, Malibu Beach, Norm Shifren risks missing his own bar mitzvah to take his first shaky ride at the fabled surf spot. Benignly apathetic about his Jewishness, Shifren pursues his dream of becoming a big-wave surfer, lifeguard, and triathlete. Shifren’s circuitous journey evolves into a spiritual quest that takes him from the pristine waves of Hawaii and Mexico, to intermarriage in Germany, a soldier’s duty in Israel, and finally, to a small shtetl in Israel, where he learns the mysteries of the Jewish ancients.