“Why Don’t Jews Surf?” ran in the Spring 1980 issue of H2O magazine, and was written by A. M. Strand, which is almost certainly a pseudonym for H2O publisher-editor and former top-ranked California surfer

An editor’s note advises the reader to “take this article with a grain of sand,” which doesn’t mean the piece is full satire, or anywhere close. It reads to me like Sugarman, who briefly attended American Jewish University, took a real run at a serious topic, and then decided to try and lighten it up with exaggeration or irony and stereotyping.

Paragraphs having to do with the Jewish population and median age, in Los Angeles and nationally, have been deleted, as I was unable to find any supporting evidence for the numbers. The rest of the article has been slightly edited.

Why don’t Jews surf? Or more exactly, why do relatively few Jews go surfboarding? Or even more exactly, why do so few young Jewish men surf as compared with young, white, Gentile men? It is taken for granted that surfboarding is a sport culturally defined as unfitting for women; for the older of either gender; and for all minority group members (Chicanos, Blacks, Asian-Americans).

The standards of the Southern California surfing milieu are well-established. Who may do it (and who may not), where to do it, when to do it, with whom to do it, on what to do it—the patterns have been cut. The right kind of candidate finds easy acceptance in the surfers’ subculture. The wrong kind is just as readily excluded. The stereotypical young, blonde, tanned, be-muscled Gentile surfer is personified many times over on California beaches. No other needs apply; few do.

What keeps young Jewish men off the waves? There are two explanations: One is based on social class, the other on values. The surfing scene is composed largely (certainly not exclusively) of proletarian and 

 sons. Typically, their class aspirations are no higher than their fathers. Those who do have higher aspirations may choose to delay their achievement for a few years [while they] quest for immediate gratification.

Nearly every young Jewish man expects to occupy a professional, managerial, or business position equal to or higher than his father’s in terms of both income and prestige. A large majority of third- and of fourth-generation American Jews already hold white-collar positions or higher. To secure an even better position, the young Jew ordinarily needs to undertake extensive schooling. As a result, he undergoes costly, lengthy, and frustrating delays in gratification. There is little time for play. Jewish men and women, for example, tend to marry later than other Americans, owing to their protracted schooling.

What has so far been offered in explanation for any aversion among young Jewish men to habitual surfing would hold as well for other American ethnics who stress high achievement—the Japanese, for example.

But there is another source of Jewish antipathy toward the pursuit in question.

When Jews came to confront Greeks in ancient Israel, their cultures were severely at odds. The pagans—that is, the Greeks—idealized and cultivated the body. They relentlessly pursued competitive sports and games. The gymnasium, with its attendant homosexuality, was a central institution. And that very institution was anathema to the Jewish elders. It was feared that if the Jewish young became Hellenized, the religious and moral structure of the Jewish people would be undermined.

Ever since the ancient meeting of Jew and Greek, there has been a generalized aversion among Jews to sports and games. Jews tend to put a primary value on intellectual activities, on study over play.

That said, Jews in the United States, elsewhere in the Diaspora, and even in Israel, have lately become more sportive. And for these reasons: First, younger Jews, especially in the United States, have become secularized. When they study, it is likely to be science, not Talmud. Second, memories of the Holocaust and of the wars between Israel and her neighbors are fresh. Through tragedy, Jews have come to believe that they should be better able to defend themselves against physical attack. The Armed Forces of the State of Israel are witness to this new preoccupation. And, however one may adjudge the Jewish Defense League, its existence is an indicator of a new attitude among younger Jews.

There is further evidence of a change in orientation among Jews when it comes to sport. More and more Jewish youth (men and women) have taken up martial arts. One may study Shotokan karate today even in Israel. Compare karate and surfing, the former instrumental and intellectually demanding, the latter frivolous. A secularized Jewish youth feels no guilt about working toward a black belt and would find encouragement from friends and family. He who takes surfing seriously would experience much guilt and little social support.

Surfing is a Dionysian frolic. It is an activity for white boys going nowhere special. The young Jewish men of Southern California are earnestly going somewhere far off the beach.

"WHY DON'T JEWS SURF?" H2O MAGAZINE (1980)

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