Surfing the Middle East
CASBAH PUBLISHING | ZENTRO MEDIA
A fascinating ... look at what happens when "a mission to surf the last place anyone expected: the Middle East" becomes reality. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aizenstat set off on a journey to surf from Israel to Hezbollah-controlled South Lebanon. Amazingly, he succeeded and lived to write a book and iPad app. OUTSIDE ONLINE
A fierce line of armored Merkava tanks aim 120 mm guns past Hebrew signs that read: "NO ENTRANCE. Closed Military Area." This is the Blue Line that marks the scorched divide between Israel and Lebanon. The border has been closed for 10 years. If you try to cross it on foot, you'll be dead before you take the first step. No one has ever tried to surf it. Till now.
As a 20-something gonzo journalist and a die-hard California surfer, JESSE AIZENSTAT was driven by an unreasoning desire to catch the waves off that forbidden, war-torn coast. SURFING THE MIDDLE EAST is the story of the unbridled six months he spent doing just that. Like the Middle East itself, it is a story of irreconcilable contradictions. Friends become mortal enemies overnight.
In what The New York Times has called "the world's most combustible region," he experienced first-hand a place of surprising humor and humanity, where centuries of remorseless violence are juxtaposed against the incomparable visceral bliss of surfing the Arabic waves.
MULTI-MEDIA APP. SURFING THE MIDDLE EAST
BOOK EXCERPT. Waves and Rockets. SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT
AUTHOR/PRODUCER : JESSE AIZENSTAT
EDITORIAL DEVELOPMENT : DONNA BEECH