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Oct. 5, 2012
New community radio show
JFSA now has its own issues-oriented program on 96.1 FM.
OLGA LIVSHIN
The Jewish Family Service Agency now has its own radio program. The Jewish Independent spoke with the show’s producer, Alexandra Gerson, and Charlotte Katzen, JFSA interim executive director, about their plans for the show and how the idea came to fruition.
“No JFSA in North America has its own radio program. We’re the first,” said Gerson, who also serves as the agency’s resettlement counselor. Outside of her work at JFSA, Gerson has been the producer of Radio VERA – a local, two-hour live broadcast that airs every weekday on Fairchild Radio 96.1 FM, from 8-10 a.m. – for the past five years. Starting this September, one hour of the program every other Wednesday, from 9-10 a.m., has been allotted to the voice of JFSA in Vancouver.
“Our new radio program, JFSA Voice, is an opportunity for us to address issues important for the local Jewish community,” Katzen told the Independent. “We’re going to profile many Jewish organizations. In fact, our first broadcast on Sept. 12 was dedicated to the Jewish Federation. Our next show, on Oct. 10, will be about JFSA.”
Programmed until the end of December, the show will include topics such as senior care, youth at risk, the art of marriage and job seekers’ challenges. “This exciting new initiative is made possible through a generous gift-in-kind donation from Dmitry Shiglik, philanthropist and owner of Radio VERA,” said Katzen.
Gerson, as the producer of Radio VERA, will act as the producer of the JFSA show, as well. Her involvement with radio began 11 years ago.
“In 2001, I met a friend and he was surprised that in such a large city as Vancouver, with the rapidly growing Russian Jewish population, there was no specific radio program,” she explained. “I was already working for JFSA but I wanted to do more, to branch out of food-bank distribution and express my Jewish convictions to a wider audience. I knew that one of the main goals of the Jewish world is unification of all Jews. Radio could serve as a tool towards this goal. So, I started thinking about a radio show and doing research. I found out that two things were needed to launch a radio program. First, we needed permission from city hall. Second, we needed lots of money. Air time, as I discovered, was very expensive.”
As it happened, city hall paperwork was a small task. Finding money was the main obstacle but, eventually, she found her first financial backer, David Stevens. With his help, the first Russian Jewish radio program became a reality. It was a pre-taped weekly one-hour program and it lasted for several years. It also saw Gerson become more actively engaged with the Zionist movement. She started attending seminars and workshops on Jewish leadership. During one such seminar in 2003, she met Shiglik, a business tycoon and an active figure in the Russian Jewish world.
“He became my friend and my mentor,” she said. He also became the financial heart of the current Radio VERA, which has been active on the Vancouver airwaves since 2008.
“VERA is an abbreviation of the words Vancouver Jewish Russian Association – in Russian,” Gerson explained. “It’s not a Russian radio [program], it’s a Canadian radio program with mostly Jewish content, broadcast in two languages: Russian and English. Half of the people we interview on the show don’t speak Russian. We talk with politicians and actors, sportsmen and economists. Our prime audience consists of people who speak Russian but live in Canada, former immigrants from Russia and Israel. But we have listeners all over the world. People listen to our live transmissions and archived shows all over Canada, in Russia and Israel, U.S.A. and Europe.”
Proud of her accomplishments with VERA, Gerson wanted to do more, to enlarge and diversify her audience. “I knew there was a dissonance in the Vancouver Jewish community: between Russian-speaking and English-speaking Jews; and there shouldn’t be. We’re the same people. That’s what JFSA Voice is for, to bridge that gap…. JFSA gave me so much, made me who I am today. People at JFSA have supported my radio work for VERA and my Jewish endeavors for years, and I thought it was time to give back. We should tell everyone how much JFSA helps the Jews of Vancouver, how much they do.”
Both Katzen and Gerson consider their collaboration essential for the success of the new radio show. While Gerson has a decade of radio production behind her, Katzen will bring her expertise and knowledge of the Vancouver English-speaking Jewish community to JFSA Voice.
“Charlotte and I will decide together what topics we want to cover,” said Gerson. “Then it’s the producer’s work to find the right guests, arrange the right music and establish the right balance of information and entertainment, laughter and weather reports. Our program transmits in the morning, when people drive. It can’t be monotone. If people hear a boring lecture for more than five minutes, they switch to another station.”
Katzen added: “We’re going to use the first half hour of the program for more timely discussions. In the second half, we might feature community events, for example, the Jewish film festival.”
JFSA Voice features host Ivan Zubov, from Radio VERA, and guest host Sydney Joel Goldberg, who has worked in broadcasting for more than 30 years and is a longtime member of the Jewish community.
For information, contact Gerson at 604-257-5151 or [email protected], or visit jfsa.ca/jfsavoice.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
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