Dorian ‘Doc’ Paskowitz, surfing pioneer, 93

Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, the Jewish,  Stanford-educated surfing pioneer, died on Monday in Newport Beach, California at age 93.

“My angel, My daddy Died tonight, He is with Ha Shem,” his daughter Navah Paskowitz posted to her Facebook account announcing his death. 

According to Navah Paskowitz, her father had been ailing for some time after undergoing hip surgery this fall.

Paskowitz was a revered figure in the surfing world, who came to international attention with the 2007 release of a documentary about his eclectic and colorful life, “Surfwise.” 

Born in Galveston, TX to Jewish immigrants from Russia, Paskowitz earned his medical degree at Stanford University. In 1956 he left his second wife and travelled, along with six surfboards, to Israel, where he helped jumpstart the sport there.

Back in the states, he married Juliette, and embarked on a nomadic surfing lifestyle, eventually having nine children. The 11-person family lived in a tiny, 24-foot camper, foraging for food and making do on what they could make by teaching surfing. Paskowitz occasionally took small jobs helping out as a physician in deprived communities, but only to keep the family from starvation.

In a 2010 interview with the Jewish Journal,  Paskowitz reflected on his family’s alternative lifestyle.

“My kids lived a charmed life,” he said, “and if they hadn't, I wouldn't have continued it for five minutes, and my wife would not have allowed me to live a lifestyle where our kids were unhappy.”

Jewish kids growing up in a materialistic world, he said,  ” can become awfully over ripened … like a plum … too sweet and gushy. Spoiled rotten. That wasn't going to happen to my kids. I said my kids are gonna live like animals and puppy dogs — and I found a wife that would do that with me.”

Paskowitz retained a strong Jewish identity throughout his life, laying teffilin, lighting Shabbat candles in the camper on Friday nights, and visiting Israel. In one sequence in the documentary, Paskowitz, on a cane after having hip replacement surgery and suffering chronic asthma, is supported by two of his sons as he walks painfully to the Western Wall.

After their travels the Paskowitz family opened a surf academy in San Clemente, CA, which is still under the management of some family members. 

Paskowitz became an advocate for healthy living, authoring a book, “Surfing and Health.”

“All I had was a way of life that I made up as I went along,” Doc Paskowitz told the Journal.  “It seemed to be healthy, peaceful, happy, humane and loveable … and that's the way it came out.” 

Beautiful memorial for Doc Paskowitz in Tel Aviv on Shabbat–hundreds of surfers paddled out in his honor:

For more information:

http://www.jewishjournal.com/film/article/dark_currents_surface_in_surfing_clans_idyllic_life