Dov shurin
Extremely in love with the One Above!
If I had to describe Dov Shurin to you without the use of pictures or video, then imagine Chong, from the Hollywood movies Cheech and Chong, mixed with the Dalai Lama and an orthodox rabbi together with a bit of Mel Brooks thrown in, that is Dov Shurin to me.
Dov Shurin moved to Israel from America in 1984, and since his arrival to the Land of Israel he has been busy being an activist, a radio host, a musician, a Torah observant Hebrew, a husband, and a father of nine. You may have seen Dov already on the front page of The Economist magazine in 1994 clutching an Uzi and a Torah atop a hill in the Judea and Samaria, or on the front page of the Jerusalem Post, walking with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he toured the Jewish Quarter of Old Jerusalem.
I met Dov in 1991, while I walking through the Old City of Jerusalem one Summer day on my way to somewhere. Dressed in a Shtreimel and black coat Dov politely stopped me and half asked, half explained that he needed a tenth man for a minyan, which happened to be in his home nearby because he had his own sefer Torah and could I be that tenth man? It seemed like an “Alice in Wonderland, how deep does the rabbit’s hole go” kind of life moment. He seemed weird, but not sketchy or scary or sleazy. I didn’t get any sexual predator alarms going off in my head, he just seemed “far out” in the 60′s kind of sense, which is why I agreed.
As it turned out, he had a table full of delicious food waiting, his wife doting on the kids who were running around like children do and one of the most interesting array of guests that could ever be assembled at a Shabbath table, which is a story unto itself better left for another article. Dov’s nature is to sing and dance on Shabbath, intermixed with eating and drinking and talking Torah, and so frankly speaking it was an amazing Judaic experience. I had no idea who Dov Shurin was before that day but after that experience at his home I was convinced that Dov was someone. The next time that I ran into Dov was years later in 1996, in downtown Jerusalem, where he had since situated himself and was still doing “his thang”, as they say.
Dov identifies with right wing opinions and wrote many of his songs in the spirit of fighting for Eretz Yisrael and the members of the Tribes of Israel’s right to return to all parts of it. The songs, such as “Halev Sheli B’Chevron” or “Zachreini Nah” were made during the period of terrorist attacks and the song “V’Lo Yintashu Od M”Al Admasam” was recorded during the period of disengagement debacle.
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[pro-player width='350' height='300' type='video']http://jewishmayhem.com/video/dovshurin_natshuoz.flv[/pro-player]
Dov shurin
