He started broadcasting as a Columbia University undergrad. In 1979 he launched his own Jewish radio show on WMCA. Ten years later he moved to television. Today he runs two TV networks – Jewish Broadcasting Service (JBS) and Russian Television Network of America (RTN).
Mark Golub may be an entrepreneur, but he’s also an idealistic Reform rabbi who sees JBS (formerly Shalom TV) as a kiruv tool. “I’m thrilled,” he says, “when somebody says to me, ‘Because of my contact with JBS, I’m becoming more observant in my own expressions of Jewish life.’ ”
The Jewish Press: What exactly do you see as JBS’s raison d’etre?
Golub: The purpose of JBS is to provide an educational initiative to the greater Jewish community using the most powerful tools of communication in the world: television and the Internet.
We are interested in doing two things. One is helping reinforce the Jewish base, which is the mainstay of Jewish life. And the second goal is to excite and engage those on the Jewish periphery. For years and years, the Jewish establishment has been saying, “We need Jewish education, we need innovative initiatives that will reach Jews who are not being reached today.” We feel JBS is exactly that initiative.
The Christian world has long used television to get its message across. And the Arab and Palestinian communities now are becoming very sophisticated in their use of television. We are the first serious attempt to use the power of television to educate, inform, and engage the Jewish world.
How many viewers does JBS have?
We have hundreds of thousands of Jews and non-Jews watching every day throughout America. But cable companies are loath to give out their numbers, and if they ever give us numbers, they are given with the understanding that we are not permitted to share them.
But I can tell you that Cablevision has been astonished at how high we rank. They have 600 channels – you would expect a Jewish niche channel to be somewhere toward the bottom, and the reality is we’re high in the middle.
You’ve been doing Jewish television since 1990 but you date your beginnings to 2006. Why?
Prior to 2006, those of us who did Jewish television – whether it was me, Zev Brenner, Leon Charney, or Phil Blazer – all of us were basically buying time or using leased access. No cable operator offered our programming to the public. Comcast made a radical and rather courageous decision to be the first television provider to offer its subscribers a television network called Shalom TV.
So we premiered in 2006 as video-on-demand, and then in in 2012 we became what is called a “linear channel.” A linear channel is what the industry calls any live channel – e.g., NBC, CBS, PBS – which means they’re 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, live. We became a linear channel on Cablevision in 2012 and that is the date I use for when we came of age because a live channel allows us to do programming we could not do on-demand. For example, you can’t do live news with a video-on-demand network.
What kind of programming does JBS currently offer?
We have daily news from Israel, we have children’s programming every morning and afternoon, we televise live Friday evening services for Jews who can’t get to services, and we have an array of Jewish studies programming. For example, Mordechai Becher of Gateways, a fabulous Orthodox rabbi, teaches Talmud every week on JBS. We also have a program called “From the Aleph-Bet” where people can learn to read Hebrew. It’s actually the single most popular series on our channel.
Meanwhile, we cover every major address given by rabbis all over the greater metropolitan area so that Judaism becomes a living presence for Jews who might otherwise never have an opportunity to be engaged. We have e-mails all the time from people who say to us, “Because of JBS I am now joining a synagogue.” One young person wrote to me, “For the first time I care about who I marry, I want to marry a Jewish girl.” Jewish leaders have been pleading for this kind of outreach and initiative. That’s what JBS is.
JBS also airs a daily one-hour interview segment, “L’Chayim,” which you host. I’m going to read seven names of people you’ve interviewed over the years. For each one, please share your impressions and experience interviewing them. Let’s start with Meir Kahane.
I was enormously impressed with him, and I felt he was incredibly misunderstood. I’m quite aware that he had extreme views. Many of his views, however, are more appreciated now than they were then.
I also liked him as a person. He was a very gentle man and a very bright man. I had him on the program many times. He’s really one of the people who impressed me the most. I had a chance after interviewing him to spend some time with him, and I thought he was a lovely, lovely man and prophetic in many ways.
Mrs. Jackie Robinson.
When I grew up in the 1950s, Jackie Robinson had a kids radio program, and I fell in love with him and his voice before I even knew he was a ballplayer and before I knew he was black.
My grandfather took me to my first Dodgers game and pointed Jackie Robinson out to me; that was the first time I had a clue he was black. And that influenced me enormously because I began to see in the black struggle for equality a kinship with what we as Jews went through. I was able to meet him personally and I always wanted to meet his wife who I feel is the queen of American baseball.
She was elegant and charming and gracious and very bright. Interviewing Mrs. Jackie Robinson – Rachel Robinson – was one of the most wonderful moments I’ve had as a broadcaster.
Abba Eban.
Abba Eban was the most eloquent individual I’ve ever had the pleasure of sitting with, and I thought his articulation of the greatness and vision of the state of Israel was one of the most enthralling things I’d ever heard.
I also give him enormous credit because he was courageous enough to say there should be recognition and dialogue with the PLO before the Jewish world was saying the same thing. He said it on “L’Chayim” and it was reported in The New York Times.
Elie Wiesel.
Elie Wiesel has had a profound impact on me. He and I became unusually close after I wrote a piece for The New York Times after the NBC miniseries “Holocaust” aired. I was very critical of it, and I referred to Elie Wiesel in my piece. He saw it and he became a big fan of “L’Chayim” and then a huge fan of JBS.
Itzhak Perlman.
What surprised me was how down to earth he was – this giant in the world of classical music. I expected him to be a bit pompous and pretentious, but he spoke about his love of Jewishness and his experiences and his overall sense of trying to help young musicians in the loveliest, sweetest way.
So he was a real joy, and I have great admiration for him.
Bernard Lewis.
Bernard Lewis is the greatest living scholar of the Islamic faith. I met with him in his apartment in New Jersey, and he was most gracious to me. It was a privilege to be in his presence.
He also brings clarity to an issue which many in the Jewish community are having trouble with. I’ll never forget this: He said to me, “If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were a border dispute, it would have been solved ages ago. This has nothing to do with land, it has nothing to do with borders. This is about a cultural view of the world in which no state of Israel is acceptable.” And you know, when Bernard Lewis says it, there is a power and a legitimacy to it.
Jackie Mason.
I’m a big fan of Jackie Mason. But Jackie Mason is always “on,” so when you hear him – even in an interview – very often it’s Jackie Mason doing shtick.
What really pleased me was that when I interviewed him he gave me himself. He comes from an extraordinary family of rabbis and I asked him: “How did your father react to your decision to leave the rabbinate for the stage?” And he was very honest about how hard it was for his father. He talked very movingly. He didn’t try to be funny, he didn’t do shtick. He was really baring some of his soul, and I was very flattered and very touched, and it’s one of the real special moments I’ve had.
Recently on JBS you mentioned that people sometimes ask you why you don’t wear a yarmulke when you’re on air. Why, in fact, don’t you?
I carry a yarmulke with me all the time, and I wear a yarmulke whenever I’m acting as a rabbi in my own congregation. My mother’s father was an Orthodox rabbi, and I’m very much committed to Jewish tradition even though I’m not Orthodox. But when we started Shalom TV, there was a long discussion as to what the image of the channel should be. And my feeling was the following:
Rightly or wrongly, there is an assumption made when one sees somebody wearing a yarmulke that he is Orthodox. And the one thing that was very important to us was that neither Shalom TV nor JBS be affiliated with any movement of Judaism. We are not Orthodox, we are not Conservative, we are not Reform, we are not Reconstructionist. We are Klal Yisrael. And one of the things I need to be able to do is attract Jews who are not already part of Jewish life.
How would you describe RTN, your Russian-language channel? Why did you start it?
I began RTN in 1992 to address the needs of the large immigrant population coming in from the Soviet Union. There were Haitian channels and Italian channels and Greek channels and, of course, Spanish channels galore. But there was no Russian-language channel.
Is there any Jewish content on RTN?
RTN is a secular American channel. But there is a Jewish overlay, and we’ve always had Jewish programming. So “L’Chayim” is seen in translation on RTN, a fabulous Russian-speaking rabbi named Aryeh Katzin does a weekly show on RTN, and Jewish holidays are celebrated on RTN.
It’s very meaningful to our audience because many of them grew up knowing they were Jewish but with very little understanding or observance. So they come to RTN and they find that we give content to their Jewishness. It’s very important to them.