During a typical shift on KGGV radio in Guerneville, Gregorio Pehrson won’t be spinning records by Usher or the Black Eyed Peas.
Molly Picon, probably. Ofra Haza and Idan Raichel, sure. Al Jolson, definitely.
Pehrson, who goes by the name DJ Gershom when he’s on the air, hosts a show tabbed “Freilach” (Yiddish for “happiness”). It’s a radio program of strictly Jewish music, sometimes with an Israeli poem or a Lenny Bruce comedy bit thrown in.
Pehrson defines “Jewish music” broadly. He might play one of the rare Yiddish recordings by the late African-American singer Paul Robeson. Or he might play a dense solo jazz piano improvisation by Jewish psychiatrist-turned-musician Danny Zeitlin.
It’s all Jewish music to him and his audience.
“There’s a big demand for Jewish culture,” Pehrson says of his listeners, many of them based in Sonoma County, and countless others around the world who listen to his twice-monthly show on the Internet. “We give them a little Yiddishkeit.”
He broadcasts from the low-power, noncommercial radio station in Guerneville, a picturesque town on the Russian River. Of course, calling KGGV a “station” might be an exaggeration.
Though it broadcasts 24 hours a day at 95.1 FM, all of the disc jockeys and staff are volunteers, the overnight hours are filled with a pre-taped music mix, and the studio is located in a converted broom closet — literally — in the Guerneville Community Church. Among the DJs who do their shows there are Pehrson and his wife, Natasha, who hosts a show of all-Mexican music.
Several others KGGV volunteers happen to be Jewish, too, though Pehrson has the only show devoted to Jewish music.
Like all KGGV programming, “Freilach” streams live on the Web, with listeners as far away as Nepal and North Africa, according to Perhson. Locals, however, need to be very local to hear the music. Pumping out a mere 64 watts, KGGV can be heard only within a 20-mile radius. If you’re a klezmer fan in San Jose or even in seemingly nearby Petaluma, you’re clean out of luck.
Pehrson, 62, describes himself as a “wood hippie.” Once upon a time, during San Francisco’s Summer of Love, the Oakland native hung out in Haight-Ashbury with the late Shlomo Carlebach (who taught Perhson to love Jews and Judaism). Traveling frequently to Israel turned him into an ardently pro-Israel Jew, as well.
Now he and his wife live on their 10-acre mountaintop spread several miles up from Guerneville in Cazadero (he named it Magic Mountain). He also calls it an owl farm, since it’s smack in the middle of a redwood forest. Go out his front door, and there’s nothing but state-owned wilderness all the way to the Pacific.
It may appear uninhabited, but central and coastal Sonoma County is home to a number of Jews. The Perhsons co-founded and are members of the Russian River Jewish Community, which meets regularly for Shabbat and holidays.
Last Rosh Hashanah, Pehrson and his fellow community members danced the hora around an ancient Sequoia tree in Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve.
“We’re Jewish Druids,” says Pehrson.
As an all-volunteer station, KGGV pays no salaries. Pehrson makes a living making and selling handmade jewelry, writing books (one is a Jewish cookbook) and promoting bands like Jubilee, a popular Petaluma-based klezmer band.
“We have [Jubilee] at all our events,” he says. “We always have dancing. We still keep the flame alive, and wave the freak flag high.”
But it’s a Jewish flag for Pehrson, who begins every one of his shows with a different recording of “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem.
That springs from his love of Jews, Judaism and Israel. Working at KGGV is a labor of love as well for Pehrson. He’s certainly not making any money working at a low-power, all-volunteer enterprise.
Not a problem.
Says Pehrson, “I haven’t done anything for money in my life.”
DJ Gershom is on the air 8 to 10 p.m. the second and fourth Thursday of every month on KGGV 95.1 FM in Guerneville. His show is streamed live at www.kggvfm.org.