Radio

Content type
Collection

Margot Adler, 1946 - 2014

In 1972 she made a deal with WBAI management to get her own free-form live radio show. At the time, WBAI went off the air loosely between 3 or 5 AM and came back on at 7 AM. Margot talked them into giving her the 5–7 AM timeslot and called it Hour of the Wolf after the film by Ingmar Bergman, a phrase which refers to the morning twilight.

Death of Writer and Comedian Selma Diamond

May 13, 1985
Selma Diamond was hard to miss, in a writer’s room, on a talk show, or in situation comedy.

Martine Rothblatt

CEO Martine Rothblatt’s fascination with interconnectivity led her to found both GeoStar and Sirius Radio, but it was her drive to save her daughter’s life that led her to create biotech company United Therapeutics Corporation.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer / Jaclyn Friedman

Sex Educators

Teaching Women About Their Bodies, Their Rights, and Their Pleasure

Jaclyn Friedman

Jaclyn Friedman voiced new possibilities for sex-positive feminism and a rejection of rape culture as editor of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.

Harriet Tanzman

Harriet Tanzman was a chronicler of the civil rights movement, creating new entry points into civil rights history.
[Untitled] from "Our Marathon" by Chris Petranech

Remembering and Healing Together

Etta King Heisler

What does it mean to remember together?

Silence. That’s what I remember. Silence coated in hazy sunshine and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I spent most of the week of the Boston Marathon Bombing feeling alone—at my desk at work, on the couch or laying in bed at home. I woke the day of the lockdown to the news on WBUR coming from my alarm clock and I sat quietly, anxiously, in my apartment all day. I heard nothing outside, no sirens or cars or people shouting in the alley outside my window. It was totally surreal. I didn’t sleep well for weeks after that happened. I felt scared and alone.

Helen Reddy’s "I Am Woman" tops the charts

December 9, 1972

Australian-born singer Helen Reddy was searching for songs that “reflected the positive sense of self that I felt I’d gained from the women’s movement,” but she couldn’t find any.

Gloria Stern Penner, 1931 - 2012

In the 1970s, I was a vigorous believer that women needed better representation in business and society, and I worked hard to make that happen. I doubt my demeanor resembled the TV-film stereotype of the obedient, dutiful babe in the background.

Susan Stamberg

Susan Stamberg, longtime host and special correspondent for National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, “a world that totally enwraps you in Jewishness.” While not an observant Jew, Susan nonetheless feels sociologically and ethnically Jewish, and credits Jewish values, among other things, for her interest in learning, opinion, and discussion.

“Dinah Shore Show” debuts on NBC radio

August 6, 1939

Frances “Fanny” Rose Stein remade herself into Dinah Shore shortly before beginning a career on America’s airwaves with the debut of her variety show

Edna Barrabee Grace, 1914 - 2010

Prominent Boston-area therapist Edna Barrabee Grace enjoyed a long and successful career counseling couples. She helped many save their marriages by teaching them simply to be nice to each other.

Netiva Ben-Yehuda

Remembering Netiva Ben-Yehuda

Ari Davidow

Many years ago I was sitting in a kibbutz dining hall in the north of Israel. One of the older members, a woman, was reminiscing about the equality of the sexes that supposedly existed when the kibbutz was founded.

Lani Silver, 1948 - 2009

She liked to tell me that she started out in life as conservative but that she did a full political turn when she traveled to South Africa at l9 and observed first hand the awful effect of apartheid. When she returned to San Francisco, she became active in the Jewish community and with liberal and social justice causes and campaigns.

Mattie Levi Rotenberg, 1897 - 1989

One Erev Pesach my grandmother demonstrated physics at the University of Toronto for three hours, went to the radio studio to tape a live broadcast, taped two more broadcasts for the upcoming days of Yom Tov, and came home to make seder.

Polly Spiegel Cowan, 1913 - 1976

The legacy that my mother left went beyond the immediate family. She was part of a great movement that profoundly changed American society. On a personal level, the legacy of her commitment inspired the succeeding generations of our own family. We, her children and grandchildren, remain committed to the beliefs of prophetic Judaism: to help the poor and the needy and to seek justice.

Dorothy Ray Healey, 1914 - 2006

…Her ability to see the potential in every person and to help translate that potential towards reality – through teaching and shared organizing; through coaxing and prodding towards action; but mostly, through the most respectful and honest listening one could ever encounter – had enormous political ramifications.

First episode of “Little Orphan Annie” radio show airs

April 6, 1931
Who's that little chatter box? The one with pretty auburn locks? Whom do you see? It's Little Orphan Annie. She and Sandy make a pair, They never seem to have a care! Cute little she,

Unit 3, Lesson 2 - Growing tensions I: Black-Jewish Relations

Analyze how underlying rifts in the relationship between African Americans and Jews brought these groups into more overt conflict in the late 1960s, with a focus on the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school crisis and a poetry slam activity.

Molly Picon

For over seventy years, Molly Picon, star of Yiddish theater and film, delighted audiences with her comic song and dance performances. Picon performed on stage and in Yiddish and Hollywood films for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences around the world. Her engaging persona and powerful performances helped keep Yiddish culture alive by bringing it out of the shtetl and into mainstream American culture.

Dramatization of Anne Frank's diary broadcast on the radio

December 14, 1952

Soon after the 1952 publication of the English translation of Anne Frank's war-time diary of her family's hidden life in Nazi-controlled New Amsterdam

Zionists celebrate Henrietta Szold's 75th birthday

December 21, 1935

The 75th birthday of the pioneering Zionist Henrietta Szold on December 21, 1935, was celebrated with a radio address broadcast across the United States.

Gertrude Berg debuts in "The Goldbergs"

November 20, 1929

Gertrude Berg's popular radio program, The Goldbergs, about an upwardly mobile American Jewish family debuted on NBC radio on November 20,

Barbara Walters becomes highest-paid journalist

October 4, 1976

On October 4, 1976, Barbara Walters became the first woman co-anchor of a major network evening news program.

Irna Phillips produces "The Guiding Light" on TV

June 30, 1952

The Guiding Light debuted on CBS television on June 30, 1952.

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