It ain't a gas when one of the funnest cities in the world gets heavy on surfers. But blame the SUPs!
Right about now is a fine time to taste the exquisite fruits of the most progressive, and secular (natch), city in the whole of the Middle East. Tel Aviv, oh it’ll steal your heart. The hospitality! The food! The sparkling can-do spirit!
In Tel Aviv, and unlike Jerusalem a couple of hours drive away, there are no heavy vibes, religion is kept at arm’s length, mostly, and along a promenade that runs along the ocean-front, you’ll find 12 clicks of sometimes very good beachbreaks, jetties and reef.
Yeah, so it’s flat for the most, but it’s about this time of year when the winter swells are lighting up this most eastern point in the Mediterranean. Click here for a trip I made with Josh Kerr, Craig Ando, Creed Mc and Dion Agius last winter.
(The movie, which I made with Toby Cregan, is interesting ’cause when I split Stab the movie was re-edited to remove all the references to Jewish history, a result, I believe, of the magazine being spooked by anti-Semitic sentiment. Even after this dumbed-down version, the anti-Jew comments were everywhere. A commentator called Bodhi wrote: “Isn’t this the video that belongs to that puff pro Israel piece published a few months back. the one they had to pull, because quite obviously stab had their lips placed so firmly around an Israeli cooks cock!”)
Lately, howevs, SUPS, which are a plague here like most soft-wave haunts, have caused so many accidents the local government has banned surfing from eight of the city’s 13 beaches.
The beaches where surfing is now banned include Topsea, where Doc Paskowitz and friends got the brave Jew into the sport in the first place and a jetty called Tel Baruch which is as rippable a wave as you’ll find anywhere. At the end of the clip that y’might’ve clicked on above, you’ll see Creed floater-saluting the setting sun – that’s Tel Baruch.
“Surfing is growing everywhere and the same here, surf schools every where, and so many SUPs,” says the surfer Artur Rashkovan, who owns a surf shop at Hilton Beach and who is one of the main players in the getting-Gazans-into-surfing group, Surfing for Peace. “When the SUPs got in the game, the mess started and I don’t need to tell you, many got injured, surfers and swimmers, so the lifeguards pushed to have an order which will ban surfers in eight spots and it started during the winter, when only surfers are in the water (dumb).”
Just recently, Artur’s pal Tamar was fined 750 New Israeli Shekels (what a handle for a little currency!) or around $US200 for surfing.
“Now, just imagine,” says Artur. “They want to push the thousands of surfers in the city into those already crowded spots, Hilton beach and the West Beach. Seems rational, right?”
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Hey guys. Just a tip regarding the article 🙂 You should be careful with the way you write, and with your. I genuinely have NO idea what this article is about. You should clarify the point of the article clearly and concisely in common english before resorting to your slang. As someone from Australia, I have no idea what a ‘SUP’ is. I also don’t know what a “SHMEAR” is? or ‘natch’. i also dont know what the ‘movie’ paragraph is about.
Also in the main tag line “It ain’t a gas when one of the funnest cities in the world gets heavy on surfers. But blame the SUPs!”, I have no idea what that means. It ain’t a gas? Also what do you mean by ‘gets heavy’? And what is a SUP?
but i like the page 🙂
Honored for your support and being mentioned in my favorite surf magazine/blog. Thank you, D!