Source: https://www.jewishexponent.com/barry-reisman-ends-six-decade-reign-as-king-of-jewish-music-radio/ and https://dmag.jewishexponent.com/June-5-2025/index.html
May 30, 2025
For 60 years, Barry Reisman has been on the air.
He has been at a handful of stations in that time, but his program has always been the same: a lively show with all sorts of Jewish music and guests.
Now, he has finally called it quits.
“It was time,” he said.
His final show at WWDB-AM 860 was on April 27, and it marked the end of one of the longest-tenured radio shows of any kind in the country. Beginning in 1965, Reisman hosted the titular Barry Reisman Show, playing klezmer, Israeli music and more and talking to A-list Jews like Yitzhak Rabin, William Shatner and Milton Berle.
The show has been a staple for not just Philadelphia Jews, but Jews worldwide. Reisman said that he didn’t even realize this until he announced his retirement and got emails from listeners from across the globe.
In the short time that Reisman has been off the air, he has managed to fill his time with more radio. That means listening to programs that he had been missing while he was doing his own, as well as working to help the station he called home.
“I love radio. That’s my life,” he said. “I’m not done entirely. I’ve given up the earphones and microphone, but I’m still involved with putting new accounts and new programs on air, and so on.”
For Reisman, a career in radio was always the plan. He said that he knew he wanted to be on the air from a young age and decided to make it happen.
“I went to a small radio station and presented them with an idea of doing a Jewish music program. They said they would give it a try for a half hour a week for 13 weeks, and they said, ‘We’ll see what happens,’” he recalled. “To make a long story short, it turned into six days a week, an hour every day.”
The show was a hit from the beginning. According to the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, the show’s style more closely resembled the fast-paced modern music shows, while the content remained thoroughly Jewish. While the music was often in Yiddish or Hebrew, Reisman spoke in English.
The proof of its success is found all through the history of the show. For one, even when the station changed ownership or formatting, there was always another station willing to take it on.
“I never actually missed a week on air,” Reisman said.
The show began in 1965 at WWDB, or WTEL back then, before moving to WQAL-FM not long after that. In 1969, it shifted to WIBF-FM, where it stayed for 23 years.
In 1992, the station was sold and Reisman moved to WSSJ-AM. In 1999, Reisman went to WNWR-AM 1540. It remained there until the station changed formats in 2011. At that point, the show came home to WWDB, where it stayed until Reisman’s retirement last month. Another testament to the show’s unique value is that the stations he was departing from always let him inform audiences of its next home. Reisman said that is a rarity in radio.
Through all of that, listeners kept tuning in and guests kept stopping by to chat. Reisman said that one guest in particular was his favorite: Jewish funnyman Jackie Mason.
“He must have been on the air with me 50 times,” Reisman said. “I never knew what he was going to say and we never rehearsed any interviews.”
There was another guest that some listeners at the time were surprised to hear on the program: Cher. While she isn’t Jewish, Cher was and is a proponent of voting. At the peak of her fame, Cher’s people called in to the station without much notice.
“I got a call about 15 minutes before air time, and this was close to an election,” Reisman said. “They wanted to know if I’d be interested in interviewing Cher. We did about a 15-minute conversation, and it was nice. She didn’t support anybody [during the conversation]; she just said to go out and vote, and that’s it. Then we talked about her records and career. It was a surprise.”
With Reisman’s program coming to an end, a hole has been created in the world of Jewish media. Cantor Scott Borsky has taken over the time slot with a program that is focused more on generally spiritual music that applies across religious lines — although that still includes plenty of Jewish music, too. He said that he is working hard to follow in the footsteps of a legend.
“I have been doing my best to fill the wonderfully huge shoes of Barry, and that is no easy task. As you know, he is an icon in the Delaware Valley, not only for the music he plays but also the Judaism he supports, the Israel he supports, and making Jewish music part of people’s lives — l’dor v’dor — from generation to generation,” Borsky said.
For Jews around the world and for more than half a century, tuning in to Barry Reisman’s show meant familiarity and comfort. The Barry Reisman show outlived most of its peer programs, not to mention a handful of antisemitic political parties, juntas and dictators. In a world where being Jewish often means you have a target on your back, Reisman always stood tall and spoke loud. He said he hopes that younger generations can preserve the importance of Jewish music.
“Jewish music is the language of their parents and grandparents,” he said.
For Borsky, Reisman’s contributions go deeper than simply providing a place for Jews to listen to their music.
“He has been the driving force in keeping Jewish music, Israeli music and Yiddish music alive in the hearts of adults, teens and children,” he said. “He has been in our lives for generations.”
aguckes@midatlanticmedia.com
Local DJ closing in on 50 years of spinning Jewish platters By Chuck Darrow
Source: https://www.inquirer.com/philly/entertainment/music/20140924_Local_DJ_closing_in_on_50_years_of_spinning_Jewish_platters.htmlSept. 24, 2014
Barry Reisman has been up and down the dial occupying a unique niche in local broadcasting since 1965.
HE ISN'T a turbocharged, larger-than-life character, like Jerry Blavat. Nor is he a benign presence still embracing the peace-and-love ethos of the 1960s, like Pierre Robert. Or an agent provocateur, nonchalantly hurling verbal Molotov cocktails, on the order of Angelo Cataldi or Howard Eskin.
Nonetheless, there's no question that Barry Reisman is as much a local radio institution as any of the above-named broadcasters.
Since 1965, Reisman has occupied a unique niche on the local airwaves as the Delaware Valley's go-to source for Jewish music, playing records by an eclectic roster of performers, from Yiddish theater icon Molly Picon and mid-20th-century cantor/recording star Jan Peerce to the Klezmatics, a leading act of the contemporary klezmer scene, and Mordechai Ben David, a major Hasidic pop star.
Not that Reisman is having any of it.
"I just go in and do my show and love doing it. I don't think of myself in that way," he protested when asked about the "institution" appellation.
Maybe he doesn't, but many listeners would likely disagree with Reisman, whose eponymous program on WWDB (860-AM) airs weekdays from 9 to 10 a.m. and Sunday from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
One such fan is Harris Bookfor, 56, a native of the Northeast's Castor Gardens section, now living in Alexandria, Va.
"Barry is a Jewish Philly icon," wrote Bookfor - who tunes in to "The Barry Reisman Show" via the Internet - in a Facebook message. "When I have bagels, lox and Sunday morning brunch, I have to be listening to Barry Reisman. The food tastes better when Barry is playing music.
"We listened to him as a family in the '60s. My grandmother listened with us. I remember my family dancing to his music and laughing at the comedy he shared with us. A few weeks ago, my granddaughter and daughter listened to Barry with us during Sunday brunch. He's touched five generations in our family."
A radio bug in his ear
It's not that Reisman, 71, ever saw himself spending his life as local radio's Jewish-music guy.
"I did not intend to do it for a long time. I wanted to be in radio, but I wasn't sure of what phase of radio I would be in," he said over a recent lunch at Ponzio's, the Cherry Hill landmark that is just a bagel's throw from the home the father of two grown daughters shares with Roselyn, his wife of 40 years.
"But the radio bug definitely bit me, and this was something I could do. I had some Jewish albums and begged, borrowed and stole others, and I gave it a shot."
Reisman was in his early 20s when he got his first Jewish-music gig, a weekly half-hour shift on WTEL-AM, on the same frequency he broadcasts over today. But his love of the medium predates that.
"I always had an interest in radio broadcasting," he recalled.
"When I was a kid, I used to have a habit of speaking so fast that people couldn't understand me. I started listening to the radio to see how they talked, and I got hooked on Frank Ford, [Joe] Grady and [Ed] Hurst . . . all the guys on Wibbage [WIBG-AM]," he added, referring to some of the iconic local personalities who inspired him.
As a teenager, the Olney High School grad bought a kit and assembled a unit that allowed him to "broadcast" over a block or two from his West Oak Lane house. That sealed the deal. "The lady down the block said, 'I heard you on the radio.' That was it."
Sure to Shore
While attending St. Joseph's College (now University), Reisman, whose family had a pretzel-manufacturing business that was a Delaware Valley mainstay for decades, wrote to several local radio personalities, asking if he could come to their studios and watch them work.
Eddie Newman, heard on WTEL, not only welcomed the youngster to his studio but, after he purchased Atlantic City's WRNJ-FM in 1962, offered Reisman a regular shift.
"I didn't even catch a breath before I said, 'Yeah,' " Reisman said.
That led to summer-vacation stints at two other Shore outlets for the education major who, for a few postgrad years, taught in Camden. But radio remained his first love, and in February 1965 he started a half-hour, Sunday morning Jewish-music program on WTEL.
The program's popularity was such that, within months, he left for WQAL-FM (now Mix 106.1), which gave him an hour on Sundays. That eventually became a four-hour shift.
"I expected to do it for six months," he admitted. "But the program started to expand and become commercially successful. It caught me by surprise."
In 1971, WQAL was sold. Reisman moved to WIBF-FM (now Praise 103.9), where he remained for more than 20 years before signing on at WWDB.
Master of his medium
In addition to playing records, Reisman has interviewed all manner of Jewish movers and shakers, from entertainers like Jackie Mason and William Shatner to such news makers as Rabbi Meir Kahane, the ultramilitant founder of the Jewish Defense League.
It's that versatility, along with his longevity, that impresses Reisman's close friend, philanthropist Kal Rudman, who, like Reisman, is a member of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame.
"In terms of being a radio broadcaster, Barry Reisman is amazing. He is a master," said Rudman. "But it's not how heavy he is, it's how long he has been heavy."
Although he is at an age where many people are enjoying retirement, Reisman has no such plans. But even after 50 years in broadcasting, he understands that radio is a capricious field at best.
"You're only as good as your last show," he reasoned. "I've been fortunate that there's always been a station that wanted [the show]. I have no plans to stop, but I can't tell you about tomorrow."
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