User:ThePhantomCopyEditor/Nachum Shifren

Rabbi Nachum Shifren, also known as the surfing rabbi, is an ultra-orthodox Lubavitcher Chassidim rabbi who is an accomplished surfer and is active in conservative and anti-Muslim politics. He is the 2010 Republican candidate for the California state senate's 26th district.

Biography

Shifren grew up in California's San Fernando Valley, where he learned to surf as a youth. He worked as a lifeguard in Malibu as a young man, a time in his life when he was not religious. He began his path to religiosity when he met an Australian rabbi who liked to bodysurf and performed sacraments at the beach. At the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War he went to Israel to volunteer on a kibbutz, and in 1977 he emigrated to Israel. Shifren served in the Israeli Defense Forces and received a degree in Combat Fitness Training at the Machon Wingate Institute for Sports in Netanya, Israel.

Shifren received a Bachelor of Arts degree from U.C. Santa Barbara in Spanish and German Literature. He continued graduate studies in West Germany at the University of Goettingen. Shifren is fluent in Spanish, German, Hebrew and Yiddish. He attended Toras Chayim Yeshiva in Jerusalem and Yeshivat Tomchei Tmimim in Kfar Chabad, Israel, where he received his rabbinical ordination in 1990. While studying in Israel, Shifren lived in the right-wing Kfar Tapuah settlement in the West Bank. When he returned to the U.S., Shifren worked as a teacher in Los Angeles.

Surfing Rabbi

Numerous print and broadcast media have done stories about Shifren and his "Surfing Rabbi" persona. He founded Jewish Surfers International and the Surf & Soul newsletter. He frequently uses surfing imagery to make religious points. "There's no way a skier can get the same connection with the Creator," Shifren told Salon in 1999. "The ocean is the first act of creation, while snow is not an act of creation. Skiers don't have the mountain chasing them, but the mountain of a wave chases surfers. They struggle against currents as they ride waves that have been around since time immemorial."

He leads annual "Kosher Surf Camp" trips to Costa Rica. He has written two books: Surfing Rabbi: A Kabbalistic Quest for Soul and Kill Your Teacher: Corruption And Racism in Los Angeles City Schools. A movie based on Shifren is currently in development.

Political Activism

Though he initially avoided politics ("My politics are not germane to what I'm doing," he told Salon. "All I'm about is surfing.") Shifren has recently become active in Tea Party politics and anti-Muslim activism. As part of his state senate campaign, he issued a press release stating that the United States is at war with Islam and "those who deny this are quislings or fifth-columnists." He also calls students who protested a speech by Israel's ambassador "terrorists-in-training." He also verbally attacked the Rev. Jesse Jackson by shouting, "If you were white, you'd be called a Nazi!"

In October, 2010, Shifren traveled to England to speak at a rally of the far-right, anti-immigrant English Defense League. In his speech, he called Muslims "dogs" and told the EDL that "History will be recorded that on this day, read by our children for eternity, one group lit the spark to liberate us from the oppressors of our two governments and the leftist, fifth column, quisling press, and that it was the EDL which started the liberation of England from evil."

External links

• [Surfing Rabbi http://www.surfingrabbi.com/]
• [Shifren's state senate campaign http://www.rabbiforsenate.com/]