Bombshell new documentary reveals surfing’s “supreme racism”, wild Jew-baiting and lingering hard-on for Nazism!

"A Jewish surfer confronts the dark, anti-semitic history of the sport he once found solace in. (But) what happens when your passion conflicts with your heritage?"

The Hebrew surfer doesn’t have to trawl too deep into the BeachGrit archives to find a kindred soul in at least one of the founders. 

Read “Israel is the raddest surf trip on Earth!”, What the Goyim Gudauskas Brothers got wrong about Israel”, Let’s go schlepping, surfing gets into the 2021 Jewish Olympics!”, Ozzie Wright sings King of the Jews!”, Movie: “The Hebrew Hammer!”.

Want a book recommendation? Read Revolt by Menacheem Begin for an uplifting account of Israelis taking on the two-faced Brits and winning.

Discrimination, racism? Yeah, the Jews know it better than anyone. The dirtiest and most tortured of histories. A lost people and two thousand orbits jammed with degradation and bestial treatment.

And then, of course, came the Nazis. The greatest war machine in history in their gorgeous, slim-fitting uniforms designed by Hugo Boss (yes!), butchering, starving, gassing and shooting six-and-a-half million Jews by the close of business in July, 1945. 

So, as you might imagine, surfing’s flirtation with Nazism, predominantly post-war and notably by Miki Dora and Californian pals, (click here for La Jolla surfers in Nazi uniforms and waving the party flag from a Greg Noll movie circa 1959 and here for one surfer’s defence of the cosplay), don’t sit too well with the Jewish surfer. 

Josh Greene, a nebbish Hebe from San Clemente, says he grew up with anti-semitism, his skinny frame he was told made him look like a death camp survivor, and took up surfing “to really carve my own niche and find the confidence, courage and physical strength I needed.” 

When his wanted to have his bar mitzvah at a surf museum his parents quietly removed the swastika engraved boards. 

Greene got a film camera for the bar mitzvah and just before he graduated from the University of Southern California in May 2022 almost decade later, he released his documentary “Waves Apart”, which pulls back the curtain on surfing’s supreme racism, wild Jew-baiting and historical hard-on for Nazism. 

“Surfing can be seen as a microcosm for issues like that and I think we would be doing our sport a great disservice if we ignored our own signs of darkness,” says Greene. “I think that by making a film like this, we can dispel ignorance and divisiveness, and instead promote inclusivity, community and equality for all surfers and all people.”

Many inspiring cameos, including from the world champ and backside tube riding pioneer Shaun Tomson who you may not know was Jewish, but whose own bar mitzvah gift was a trip to Hawaii.

“For me, it was a total representation of what a bar mitzvah is — it’s coming into manhood. And here I was, a young boy paddling out in a 25-foot surf in Hawaii, which was a moment for me that changed my life. I came back to South Africa, and my career and my role in surfing changed after that bar mitzvah present.”

Tomson’s own experience with the Jew-haters, interestingly enough, was limited to being called a Jew Boy in the army and not within the surf community.

Watch trailer here.

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Chief of Sport Miley-Dyer (pictured) watering the Tree of Engagement. Photo: Instagram
Chief of Sport Miley-Dyer (pictured) watering the Tree of Engagement. Photo: Instagram

Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer highlights wanton cruelty of World Surf League with heartless smirk in chilling “Make or Break” promo!

"The Tree of Engagement must be periodically watered with the blood of Owen Wright."

Season two of Make or Break has officially been unleashed and are you excited to dip into the production? Have you already stayed up all night binging each and every episode? The Apple television program is, by any measure, very fine. The Box to Box team does not fear professional surfers in the same way the World Surf League does and so does not un-point cameras when things go sideways or Zeke Lau becomes upset.

It is a great shame that those various British producers, directors and camera people aren’t given the keys to the broadcast and instead we are left with a tall Wall of Positive Noise but we can’t always get what we want, I suppose.

JP Currie will be, in any case, reviewing soon but, in the meantime, there have been many dribs and drabs pushed through World Surf League channels intending on driving interest including the well-loved Instagram account of the World Surf League’s Jessi Miley-Dyer.

Now, it might have been thought that the Chief of Sport would have highlighted a positive moment, as is in line with the League’s sunny ethos, but in a wild shock to fans, Miley-Dyer instead chose to focus on death and destruction in a thoroughly macabre way.

In a to camera bit, she described how the mid-year cull was being rolled out for the first time, that it would essentially end careers and lead to destitution, how “heavy” that was but also how “massive.”

That the Tree of Engagement must be periodically watered with the blood of Owen Wright.

Cruel?

Wantonly so.

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Karen (pictured) regulating.
Karen (pictured) regulating.

San Diego beach neighborhoods form powerful “Coastal Karens” political lobby in order to thwart out-of-control twink parties and baby bonfires!

"May I speak with the city manager?"

The pressure of living beachfront in America’s Finest City, man. Sure, there are the small pleasures like temperate year ’round weather, plentiful surf and fine enough sand but there are also real evils like spike ball parties that grow out of control, baby bonfires and little dogs secreted into “no dog” zones.

Well, Ocean Beach, Mission Beach, Pacific Beach and La Jolla are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. Leaders on the four town councils have decided to band together and form up a powerful political lobby in order to get the city to see things their way.

Dubbed the “Coastal Karens,” the group is fired up and ready to go. “We all have many concerns in common and we’ve found that we’re much more effective when we work together,” Catharine Douglass, chair of the La Jolla Town Council’s Safety Committee, told The San Diego Union-Tribune.

“Our needs are much greater than most other neighborhoods because of all the tourists, but we don’t get extra money from the city for that,” added Larry Webb, president of the Mission Beach Town Council. “We’re getting some respect from the city. We’ll continue to explore other areas where we have similar concerns and solutions we want the city to consider.”

First in the sights were beach vendors, those pesky folk who attempt to sell hats, jelly beans and whatnot. The Coastal Karens goaded the city into adopting comprehensive street vendor legislation, though it won’t take effect until the California Coastal Commission approves it.

Next up was the restriction of wood bonfires which cause people to sit and stare mindlessly, often while sipping contraband IPA and the city agreed to the demands.

Success.

The city then agreed to physically close all parks and parking lots along the coast, overnigh,t to prevent teenage canoodling and loud boombox rap music leading to another set of high fives.

Not content with simple laws getting passed, though, Charlie Nieto, president of the Pacific Beach Town Council, declared, “No matter how good the legislation, it won’t mean anything without enforcement.”

The group out on the streets, cell phones ready, voices pre-shrilled.

Karens gonna Karen.

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Slater's longtime fiancé (background) lovingly ponders her man in defeat. Photo: WSL
Slater's longtime fiancé (background) lovingly ponders her man in defeat. Photo: WSL

Surf legend Kelly Slater telegraphs death, end of career, in naked new interview: “My competitive flame is burning low, but it can spark up at times.”

The king is still alive. Long live the king.

As JP Currie pointed out this morning, nobody does naked vulnerability like the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater. Oh that “world’s greatest” business is entirely beyond dispute no matter your feelings on the “surf industry,” “competitive professional surfing” or politics. Slater has conquered every niche of our water world, save the kooky bits like SUPing and foiling, and, yet, is still approachable enough, still raw enough to be the only championship tour participant to accept interviews after losses, the only to let the camera linger, capturing real hurt and tenderness (see above photograph).

The end is, of course, nigh and we have all know that for quite some time but now it appears that Slater knows it too.

In a sweet and poignant interview with People magazine, dutifully promoting the Apple Television program Make or Break Season 2, the 11x World Champion says about the end, “”I think about it a lot. It’s a reality, because it’s not far off for me. My competitive flame is burning low, but it can spark up at times.”

The fantastic bit of self-awareness led to other gems including, but not limited to…

Dying:

I don’t ever envision that time in my life where I’m not surfing. I’ve said it before and it sounds kind of strange, but I’d be totally fine passing away, out in the ocean somewhere, someday when I’m 100 years old. I want to surf until my final days.

A second career:

I would like to try my hand (in professional golf) at some point. I’m at a level where I should be able to perform if I’m not too nervous.

Marriage:

We (Kalani Miller plus GOAT) talk about it a lot, so it’ll probably happen at some point there.

And his perpetual golden wildcard/dude cruise:

I’ll still probably surf an event here or there for a few years to come. I really want to focus my life on going to my favorite places on the planet and maybe getting a boat and doing a lot of it just with a couple people. I don’t know. It’s a never-ending journey for surfers. There’s always another wave and another place you want to go.

What will we do without him?

More to the point, what will the World Surf League do?

David Lee Scales and I did not discuss this on our weekly chat but, man, they should be extremely worried unless Chief Tinky Winky Jessi Miley-Dyer has already ginned up a solid plan. I’d imagine Dirk Ziff gifts a chunk of his professional surfing organization to Slater as a sweet pair of golden handcuffs to match those golden wildcards.

Fun.

Scales and I, anyhow, did discuss the issue of trans women in sport from a white cis male perspective.

Groundbreaking.

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Open Thread: Comment Live on Day Four of the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach where surf fans act averse to nasty language and partial to fruity tea!

Gird thy loins!

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