Daniel Lubetzky

Earlier today I had one of the most fun, bizarre and fascinating meetings in a while – and I’ve been having a lot of these lately!

SAKAL, one of the largest retailers in Israel, heard about our OneVoice Summit: One Million Voices to End the Conflict to happen on October 18th, and the CEO got in touch because they had had a similar vision and we are exploring cooperation.  Impressive guy and operation. 

 But the funnest part is that with him were two colorful characters.  The first turned out to be the famous Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, an 86-year old surfer, one of the fathers of surfing – who has been surfing for 74 years.  The man embodies goodness and healthy living – hasn’t eaten sugar in 50 years.  He founded the famous “Paskowitz Surfing Camp” that has trained some of the best surfers.

His son, David Paskowitz, is a producer and performer – and showed us a very cool song he had created and sang – ominously titled, yes, OneVoice!

Besides partnering with Sakal and OV on the OneVoice Summit to mobilize moderates against extremism, David and Doc, who introduced surfing to Israel, are now determined to do the same in Palestine.

You may think this is  crazy – but then check out this story by Louise Roug of the Los Angeles Times: Gaza Surfers Find Freedom In The Sea:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-gazasurf29jul29,0,5906618.story?track=mostviewed-sectionfront

 Here is a glimpse of the article, describing Mohammed Jayab, “the top dog on the beach” who “developed his tricks and technique by imitating surfers on TV. …Like the other Gaza surfers, he watches reruns of ‘Baywatch’ episodes. But he doesn’t ogle the bikini-clad lifeguards on the show, he said.  ‘I close my eyes and watch through my fingers.’”