Special Report
ON THE
COVE;)
Front and center: Cantor Michael Smolash, teacher Josh Goldenberg of West Bloomfield and Corey Berkowitz (standing). Front row: Lev BeItser, 16, of West Bloomfield,
Amanda Adamson, 15, of Bloomfield Hills, Hunter Cooper, 15, of Bloomfield Hills and Hillary Shapiro, 16, of West Bloomfield.
Back row: Jeffery Couagenberq, 14, of Farmington Hills, Mitchell Kireger, 14, of West Bloomfield, Blake Levine, 15, of Franklin, and Josh Loney, 14, of West Bloomfield
WJEW
Corey Berkowitz, 16,
of West Bloomfield
heads the WJEW
Synagogue teens power round-the-clock
cyber radio station.
Robin Schwartz
Special to the Jewish News
S
traight talk from local Jewish teens and their favorite Jewish tunes seem to play
well to a worldwide audience. Who knew? Certainly not the creators of Temple
Israel's new teen-driven Internet radio station WJEW, which is now broadcasting
24 hours a day from the temple's teen lounge in West Bloomfield.
Cantor Michael Smolash and students with the temple's Tyner Religious School
Monday night program are pleasantly surprised, and a bit stunned, by the immedi-
ate success of their on-line endeavor, which they started as an alternative to the many
Christian radio stations on the airwaves. After only a few weeks of broadcasting, WJEW
already has listeners from such faraway places as Portugal and Norway.
"I don't think we expected more than our Michigan congregation to tune in," Cantor
Smolash said. "People have tuned in from more than 20 countries and 25 states."
WJEW went live via streaming audio in January, through an Internet service called
Live 365 based in Foster City, Calif. The teens do all the work at the temple; putting
together song play lists, producing jingles, talk shows and interviews. Then they send
the material over the Internet to Live 365, which has the bandwidth to broadcast across
the world. So far, they've aired 1-on-1 interviews with comedian Joel Chasnoff and Rabbi
Shmuley Boteach of the Learning Channel's "Shalom in the Home." A small group also
has recorded some impromptu round-table discussions with Cantor Smolash about poli-
tics, music, social issues, religion and other subjects.
WJEW on page 14
March 15 2007
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