Josh Greene was so in love with surfing he talked his parents into having his bar mitzvah at a surf museum in San Clemente, where he grew up riding waves.
Years later, his parents nonchalantly mentioned what they dubbed the “Nazi surfboards” they had removed before his milestone celebration.
They were referring to early-era wooden boards that bore an etched-in symbol on the top that were known as the “swastika model.” While museum founder Dick Metz says the symbol on those boards is slightly different than a swastika and was derived from a Native American sign for sky, water, mountains and land, Greene said he couldn’t help but wonder if there was an antisemitic side to surfing that needed to be explored.
Greene, 23, is getting ready to debut his film “Waves Apart” on Feb. 16 and Feb. 18 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, a documentary he created while in film school at USC.
The 25-minute short film has already earned accolades and is among 24 finalists for the Student Academy Awards, an international student film competition, and one of seven honored out of 1,796 submitted.
In his film, Greene revisits the surf museum to learn more about the “swastika model” history.
“It’s just mind boggling to me, to comprehend that the first mass-produced surfboard ever is known as the ‘swastika model,’” he said.
Metz said by 1937, two years before World War II broke out, the symbols were no longer used on the surfboards because their context had changed. “It’s always a talking point when people see them, right away they think of it as a German swastika,” Metz said.
Greene said the “whole arc of our film investigates this trend of anti-Jewish rhetoric and Nazi imagery throughout the decades.
“A lot of surfing is beautiful and something I love, but I don’t think we would be pushing the sport in a positive direction if we ignore areas we fell short,” he also said. “It was disappointing to learn these dark and…
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