Mike Greenberg’s radio career started with a simple realization: accounting really wasn’t his thing.

While studying accounting at SUNY New Paltz, Mike found his way to the college radio station, WRNP — and quickly discovered where he belonged. He transferred to Nassau Community College on Long Island, where he became a daytime air personality at WHPC. He later joined Hofstra University’s award-winning WRHU, where he learned what he calls the “art of broadcasting” from legendary GM Jeffrey Kraus ZT”L.

Mike eventually transferred to SUNY Buffalo State, where he joined WBNY and hosted the Friday Morning Breakfast Club. After college, radio came calling with a few full-time opportunities — including one at a country station in Sioux City, Iowa. Mike decided that moving to Iowa to play country music was perhaps not his calling, so he took another path and began a career in education.

Mike went on to teach in several New York City elementary schools, where his radio training turned out to be surprisingly useful. He brought the same energy, personality, and love of entertaining an audience into the classroom — and discovered that being an “air personality” works pretty well with kids, too. He is set to retire after 32 years at the end of this year.

The Birth of Kol Yehudim

Fast-forward to 2016. Now living in Highland Park, New Jersey, Mike still had the radio bug. He approached longtime Jewish broadcaster Al “Leibedik Al” Gordon, owner and operator of WJPR 1640 AM, with an idea for a Jewish music program that would be a little different: create one seamless broadcast where all Jewish musical traditions meet.

The idea was inspired in part by legendary New York Jewish broadcaster Art Raymond Z”L and his Sunday Simcha on WEVD — a program Mike grew up listening to and considers one of his broadcasting influences.

Al gave the idea the thumbs-up, and Kol Yehudim was born, debuting on the Sunday following Shabbat Nachamu in 2016 on 1640 WJPR.

The concept was simple: Jewish music is a pretty big tent, so why limit it to just one style? Kol Yehudim brings together Israeli, Jewish Contemporary American, Chazzanut, Yiddish, Sephardi and Ladino, liturgical, folk, and other Jewish music — all on the same show.

The name Kol Yehudim reflects that idea perfectly. Depending on how it is written in Hebrew, it can be understood as “All of the Jewish People” or “The Voices of the Jewish People.” Both work.

From New Jersey to Buffalo — and South Florida

In 2021, Mike received an email from the General Manager / Chief Engineer of WBNY 91.3 FM at SUNY Buffalo State — the very station where Mike had started his college radio career. The offer? Bring Kol Yehudim to WBNY and broadcast it throughout Buffalo and Western New York. This would mark the first Jewish radio broadcast in Buffalo, NY since the early 1960s! Mike didn’t have to think twice.

Today, Kol Yehudim is heard on both 1640wjpr.com, now broadcasting online from South Florida, and 91.3 WBNY in Buffalo and Western New York, with an online presence at wbny.org and on the Radio FX App.

So, in a strange twist of radio geography, Mike gets to broadcast a Jewish music show from New Jersey to listeners in South Florida and Western New York — two places that, weather-wise, probably couldn’t be more different.

From the classics to the cutting edge, Kol Yehudim is all about celebrating the incredible variety of Jewish music — and having a little fun along the way.