Brandeis Magazine

I enjoyed David Levin’s nostalgic piece about the early days of WBRS (“Brandeis on the Air,” Summer 2024).

During the 1960-61 academic year, I hosted a weekly show of folk music called “Ballads and Blues.” WBRS had a music library then, but it had no folk music at all. I used to bring LPs from my own nascent collection and cue them up on the station’s two turntables. I’m sure I played a lot of Odetta, Josh White, and the Weavers. My theme music was Pete Seeger’s “Goofing- Off Suite.” The studio was empty except for me; I was my own tech person.

The station’s reach at the time was limited to the campus dorms. I don’t know how many people actually heard the show, but I did have a friend who told me he listened to it regularly. So at least I know that — except for that one time I forgot to turn the station on — the signal did get out there.

S. Marc Cohen ’62
Eastsound, Washington

Editor’s note: WBRS began broadcasting over the FM airwaves in 1968, when it received its FCC license. However, for a few years before that, the station was able to reach listeners in the residence halls by transmitting a signal over the campus’s electrical wiring.

Well before WBRS started broadcasting over the airwaves, the station operated out of a small office in Shapiro Gym, broadcasting to the campus over the electrical grid. Any radio in the dormitories could tune in.

On April 5, 1960, WBRS covered the Brandeis Mock Democratic Convention in much the same style as the major networks covered presidential nominating conventions — with an anchor, live interviews from the floor, and so on. The winning slate at the Brandeis convention was John F. Kennedy-Adlai Stevenson.

After the convention ended, there were four of us in the WBRS studio: Mike Grossman ’61, J.J. O’Leary ’61, Steve Rudin ’60, and me. Because mock conventions were considered real news at the time, one of us came up with the idea of calling Sen. Kennedy, H’58, to tell him of his victory at Brandeis and ask for a comment.

As it happened, April 5 was also the date of the Democratic primary in Wisconsin, in which Kennedy defeated Sen. Hubert Humphrey. And so, enterprising and resourceful, we dialed the Hotel Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, and asked to speak with Kennedy campaign headquarters. After the operator put us through, we identified ourselves as the Brandeis University radio station and asked to speak with the senator. To our surprise, the next voice we heard was Kennedy’s.

“We’re calling, senator,” we informed him, “with the good news that you’ve just won the Brandeis Mock Democratic Convention, held this evening on our campus in Waltham. We’re on the air now, sir. Would you care to make a comment?”

JFK’s reply, as I remember it, went something like this: “As an honorary Brandeis alumnus, I’m extremely pleased to learn this and proud, as always, of my second alma mater. Let me add that, looking ahead in the next few months, my hope is that, as Brandeis goes, so, too, will every other state in the upcoming primaries, including California.”

Whereupon, we WBRS reporters, pleased with our scoop, respectfully thanked the candidate and wished him a good evening. We might have recorded this conversation, but it didn’t occur to us to do so, unfortunately. And so ended a peak moment, if I may say so, in the early history of the Brandeis radio station.

Stephen Bluestone ’61
New York City

I tuned in to WBRS from my first days on campus. In those days, pre-internet by a wide margin, WBRS not only entertained, it was the prime outlet for breaking Brandeis news.

This turned out to be critically important on the evening of Nov. 9, 1965, the date of a legendary 13-hour East Coast blackout that stretched from Canada to Maryland. Everyone was studying for midterms when the lights went out at 5:30 p.m. Candles and flashlights made an appearance, only to burn down or wear out.

What was the administration going to do? How would we study if exams were to be held? Finally, at 9 p.m., WBRS announced (I have no idea what power source they were using) that exams were canceled and would be rescheduled.

The cheers rivaled those on that fateful day in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson announced he would neither seek nor accept his party’s nomination for the presidency.

Howard Levine ’69
Payson, Arizona

I really enjoyed reading “Brandeis on the Air.” I am very impressed by the freedom and creativity that seem to abound at WBRS.

Liz Klein Benjamin ’64
East Montpelier, Vermont

I hosted a classical music program on WBRS in 1968 (I think it was called “Masterworks”). I was living in the East Quad at the time. I remember playing vinyl records and reading the news at the top of the hour. Such memories. Your article brought them back. That was an exciting time.

Bernard Gerber ’69
Houston

I was very disappointed with “Talking Past Each Other,” by Daniel Estrin ’06 (Summer 2024). The way he showed both sides made it seem like the atrocities and war crimes Hamas committed against us Israelis on Oct. 7 can or should be compared with our still-legitimate retaliation. Don’t forget who is to blame here. Hamas and Islamic Jihad raped and slaughtered our citizens. Hamas steals food from its citizens and has put them in danger every single day since taking control of the Gaza Strip in January 2006. Hamas is the reason Gazans are so poor, while their leaders are extremely rich.

I felt ashamed to read this article in Brandeis Magazine.

Tamar Shachaf Schneider, GSAS MA’17
Rosh Ha’Ayin, Israel

Thank you for the moving piece “The Fruits of My Indecision,” by Theodore M. Hammett, GSAS MA’75, PhD’76 (Turning Points, Summer 2024). Hammett’s reference to radical thought that eschews violence brought to mind a 2023 biography by Jonathan I. Israel, “Spinoza: Life and Legacy,” in which the author documents the philosopher’s practice of writing radical texts that peacefully persuaded readers to build a more just and tolerant republic.

This, in turn, recalled a Brandeis graduate seminar on Spinoza, taught by the estimable Alexander Altmann in the early 1970s, which I had the privilege of auditing as a mere undergrad. I’ve been a Spinozist ever since.

Everything is connected, as Spinoza himself might say.

Ernest Rubinstein ’74
New York City