A quick twist of the radio dial typically means listening to a slew of barking radio personalities and frothy fundamentalist preachers.
But in the East Bay, a mild-mannered Jewish talk-show host is now holding court.
Howard Felson’s “Torah Talk,” an hourlong talk-radio show on current issues from the perspective of Jewish wisdom, hits the airwaves at 8 p.m. on every third Sunday. The show airs on KECG, 88.1 FM, a tiny radio station run by El Cerrito High School students. The station also transmits on 97.7 FM in San Pablo.
Since the 25-watt station only reaches a 20-mile radius, Felson’s not likely to strike fear in the hearts of the major radio mouths.
For his part, the 45-year-old Felson is happy he’s cued to a different track.
“Although I like controversy, it’s not my style. I like to shed more light than heat. But I’m also into getting an audience, and controversy does that.”
Felson said he conjured up the show because he was curious about what the Jewish approach to talk radio could be.
“I’d hear people talking about issues on the radio and wonder, ‘What does Judaism have to say about a particular issue?’ A lot of people on the radio just give their opinions that are not based on any facts. I wanted to see what some classical sources would say.”
Felson, an El Cerrito resident who by day works as an engineer for KGO-AM Radio and previously worked as a radio reporter, used his technical prowess to launch his show, an unpaid labor of love.
He also had the upbringing. Felson, a native of the Bay Area, was weaned on radio as a youth. His family often tuned into ballgames on the box. And when Felson hit his 20s, he got into San Francisco’s thriving underground radio scene.
The radio show certainly isn’t Felson’s only Jewish foray. He is a member of Orthodox Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley and president of Generation to Generation, a group for children of Holocaust survivors.
Last year, Felson and a few local rabbis and scholars created a pilot and pitched it to the local station, which offers community programming on the weekends. His show started airing in October.
Felson has had programs on Purim, Passover, Yom HaShoah, homosexuality and making peace with one’s enemy.
His guests have included Rabbi Eliezer Finkelman of Beth Israel; Naomi Seidman, an associate professor at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union; and Nitzhia Shaked, an Israeli-American attorney and Lehrhaus Judaica instructor. Most of Felson’s cast are locals or visiting scholars.
The show averages one caller per episode. But, Felson joked, that’s good news because radio analysts say it takes 10,000 listeners to get one caller.
More phone-ins are welcome. Felson admits he doesn’t yet have the knack for goading the radio public into calling.
“I know of people who will not cover certain topics because they are not controversial enough. I’m doing a different kind of radio; it’s not commercial and I hope it’s more thoughtful. Maybe it doesn’t sell; I don’t know.”
Felson sees his show’s primary audience as his own generation. He attributes this to a Jewish revivalism he has witnessed among his peers. He hopes the radio show will help further this momentum, even though he modestly adds he has few answers.
The radio show is “a search for truth, though a lot of the issues we talk about don’t have a lot of certainty. Since there are not necessarily clear answers, the talmudic method has lot in common with the scientific method in that we look at many different angles.”
Future episodes will likely focus on pluralism, Jewish humor and the poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Felson is also gearing up for the international debut of his show. He’s planning to post the full hour as a sound file on the Internet.
Even if he’s not going to become the next Larry King, Felson has certainly found his spot on the dial.