Surfwise: The Amazing True Odyssey of the Paskowitz Family

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SURFWISE follows the odyssey of 85-year-old, legendary surfer Dr. Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, his wife Juliette, and their nine children–all of whom were home-schooled on the beaches of Southern California, Hawaii, Mexico and Israel; they surfed every day of their lives, and were forced to adhere to a strict diet and lifestyle by their passionate and demanding, health-conscious father. In the mid-1950s Dorian Paskowitz was a successful doctor living the good life in the territory of Hawaii, until two devastating divorces and the realization that he had no interest in money or status caused him to completely upend his life. Dorian dropped his practice and traveled to Israel for a year where he lived among the Bedouins and developed a lifelong obsession with a healthy diet. He introduced surfing to Israel and became a hero in the burgeoning Tel Aviv beach scene. Returning to the States, he met his wife Juliette, and the rest was history. They fell madly in love, steered clear of society, lived out of a tiny camper on the beach, and had 7 sons in rapid succession: David, Jonathan, Abraham, Israel, Moses, Adam, and Salvador Daniel. Then they had one daughter, Navah, and their ninth child, Joshua. The children were raised in the Jewish tradition, complete with Shabbat on the beach every Friday night. But that’s where similarities with a normal societal upbringing end. Doc’s absolute determination was to raise his children according to the strictest standards of nature. They ate only organic and/or raw foods with no sugar or fat. Their community was their family. They didn’t need money or have to pay bills or taxes. Their home was anywhere the crowded camper was parked. What happens to eight brothers and a sister that are raised under such extraordinary circumstances? SURFWISE is the story of a man who pursued his dreams and dragged his family along for the wild ride.

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American history is filled with legendary characters who turned their backs on society, snubbing its conventions and opting for a simple, contemplative life. Like Thoreau. Kerouac. And.. Paskowitz? Well, actually, yeah.
Surfwise, director Doug Pray’s 2007 documentary, tells the decidedly offbeat tale of Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz. Now in his mid-80s, the guy who calls himself “one of the few dumb Jewish doctors” was once on a big-time career track; a Stanford-educated physician, he was the head of the American Medical Association in Hawaii, an expert surfer, and a strong, handsome man who often donated his services and was asked to consider a run for governor of that state. But more than 50 years ago, Paskowitz and his third wife, Juliette (his previous marriages had failed due to his own “sexual ignorance”), essentially chucked it all for the sake of family, surfing, and precious little else. They had nine children, all but one of them boys, and the entire brood lived in a 24-foot camper, traveling constantly. Money? There was precious little of that (although years later the family generated some income by establishing a popular surf camp near San Diego). Food? They managed, with Paskowitz enforcing a strict organic regimen. School? “Education be damned,” Doc said, and not one of the children ever attended classes regularly. To outsiders, it was an idyllic life; “we were not attached to the physical world at all,” says one of the (now middle-aged) kids today. But the downside was deep. Crammed into their tiny space, the children watched and listened as their parents noisily made love every single night (not a great thing for the kids’ own later sex lives). Driven–and sometimes abused–by their ultra-controlling, narcissistic dad, they became excellent surfers but were ill-prepared for adult life when finally, in their 20s, some of them began to leave “home.” Remarkably, they all seem relatively (so to speak) fine now, with real jobs in surfing, music, and the film business and a fairly clear perspective on their strange upbringing (“Don