Mark S. Golub

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Mark S. Golub (born May 10, 1945) is an American rabbi, media entrepreneur, personality and educator. He created the first Russian language television channel produced in America, RTN (The Russian Television Network of America) and the Jewish television channel Shalom TV.^{[citation needed]} Golub is the rabbi of Chavurah Aytz Chayim (Stamford, CT), but is best known as the host of L'Chayim, a talk show he created in 1979 in which he interviews prominent Jewish figures.

Early life[]

Golub was born in New York City to Jewish parents Leo J. Golub, a dentist (Columbia Dental School) and Rebecca Newman Golub (Columbia Law School). He has one younger brother, David Golub, an attorney in Stamford, CT.

The family moved from New York to Connecticut when Leo Golub joined the United States Public Health Service in 1952 and was stationed at the Groton, Connecticut Submarine Base.

When Leo Golub was transferred to the Federal Prison in Danbury, Connecticut, the family resided in Danbury where Golub attended elementary school and junior high. When his father completed his service, he opened the first dental practice in Trumbull, Connecticut which is where Golub completed middle school and attended high school.

After high school, Golub attended Columbia College where he was president of the Jewish organization on campus, Seixas Menorah, and served as general manager of the campus radio station, WKCR-FM & AM. At WKCR, he produced and hosted "Approaches To Religious Concepts", in which Protestant, Catholic and Jewish leaders engaged in discussion.

In cooperation with Planned Parenthood of NYC, Golub also produced and hosted a sex-education series for New York Radio, "The Biology Of Love", a series subsequently used for training by the New York City Board of Education.

Career[]

Rabbi[]

Golub explains that he is an "Humanistic" Jew, favoring Midrashic or Rabbinic approaches to the Tradition over labeling himself "Reform" or "Reconstructionist". Since 1979 he has been the rabbi of Chavurah Aytz Chayim (Stamford, CT).

His maternal grandfather, Ben Newman, was an Orthodox rabbi with smichah from the Slobodka Yeshiva of Lithuania. His paternal grandfather, Jacob S. Golub, was an American Jewish educator and his paternal grandmother, Rose W. Golub, wrote "Down Holiday Lane" with a comprehensive teacher's companion. Jacob Golub also helped Mordecai M. Kaplan found the Reconstructionist Movement, its home synagogue in New York (Society For The Advancement of Judaism-SAJ). Jacob Golub was also an original contributing editor of "The Reconstructionist" magazine.

Golub's family was mainstream Conservative (Congregation Rodef Shalom in Bridgeport, CT) and his parents helped found the first Conservative Synagogue of Trumbull, Connecticut where Golub helped his father lead services as cantor when the student rabbi from JTS was not there. When he graduated Columbia College (BA '67), Golub studied for the rabbinate at the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City (BHL, DHL, Rabbinic Ordination '72).

During his rabbinic studies at HUC-JIR, Golub joined his mentor, Eugene B. Borowitz, in the creation of "Sh'ma Magazine: A journal of Jewish responsibility", a publications in which Jews could engage in written dialogue on the Jewish and secular issues of the day. Golub was Sh'ma's founding assistant editor.

After his ordination in 1972, Golub became the Editorial Director and Director of Public Affairs for telephone-talk station WMCA Radio in New York City. In addition to writing WMCA's editorials and writing WMCA's FCC License Renewal Applications, Golub worked with the station's ombudsman organization "Call For Action", was the substitute host for talk-show hosts Barry Gray and Barry Farber, and hosted his own weekly talk show.

Also in 1972, Golub became the founding rabbi of a chavurah in Stamford, CT, called Chavurat Aytz Chayim, with an emphasis on adult study and family participation. In 1973, a similar group of families in neighboring Greenwich, Connecticut, Chavurat Deevray Torah, asked Golub to become their founding rabbi on alternate weekends. The two congregations later merged as Chavurat Aytz Chayim.

Golub's rabbinic focus of study has always been on the traditional rabbinic midrash which elucidates the meaning and applications of Torah. Golub emphasizes the extent to which the rabbinic tradition rejected all forms of literal, fundamentalist understandings of Judaism and rejected the notion of supernatural miracles. Stressing Maimonides's teaching that the Torah is poetic metaphor, Golub centers his Jewish theology on the midrashic character of Nachshon, whom the rabbis credit for being the Jew to plunge into the Red Sea causing the sea to split. Golub's teaching centers on the notion that a Jew is a member of a "family", the Jewish People; and that Torah is best understood as the Jewish People's unique embrace of life in a response to their sense of the Divine in the universe.

Media[]

In 1979, Golub created the 501c3 organization, Jewish Education in Media, Inc (JEM). JEM's first production was a weekly radio-magazine Golub produced and hosted called L'Chayim, which premiered on the first Sunday of February 1979. “Highlighting the people, issues and events of importance to the Jewish community", L'Chayim is a forum for dialogue among a wide array of Jews. The program premiered on WMCA Radio, moved to WOR Radio, and in 1990 premiered on television as well. L'Chayim is currently seen weeknights as the flagship program of Shalom TV.

In 1991, after Chavurot Aytz Chayim sponsored Jewish families from the former Soviet Union immigrating to America during Operation Exodus, Golub teamed up with immigrant Michael Pravin, to create a Russian-language television channel in the United States to serve Jews from the FSU who could not speak English. Calling it The Russian Television Network of America, RTN premiered as a channel on Cablevision in October 1992.^[1]

Golub and Pravin ran RTN out of Stamford, Connecticut until they sold their company to a competitor in 1997. When in 2000, the purchasing company filed bankruptcy, Golub and his brother David Golub, an attorney with his own law firm in Stamford, CT and Mark's partner in his business and Broadway endeavors, purchased the Russian assets from the New Jersey Bankruptcy Court. He has remained the President as well as the face of RTN.

In 2005, founders Bradford Hammer and David Brugnone brought on Mark as the president and CEO of Shalom TV.^[2] In 2008, Shalom TV premiered nationally on the Comcast cable system. By 2010, Shalom TV was a free VOD service on many American terrestrial television providers and was available in more than 40 million American homes.^[3][4][5] In 2011, Golub premiered the Shalom TV Channel, a 24/7 "linear" channel with Jewish programming (news and public affairs, education, daily children's programming, movies, cultural and entertainment programming).^[6] On September 24, 2014, The Shalom TV name was changed to Jewish Broadcasting Service.

Golub is seen in several of the Jewish Broadcasting Service's series including L'Chayim, Jewish 101, From the Aleph Bet, and In the News as well as public affairs coverage.^{[citation needed]}

Golub holds an honorary doctorate from HUC-JIR, and was listed as one of Newsweek Magazine's top 50 most influential rabbis in America in 2009.^[7][8]

Personal life[]

Golub was married in 1967 to Zola Stevens. Together they had one daughter, Sarit, now Dr. Sarit Golub Greenberg, a professor of Psychology at Hunter College in New York City where she is also the Director of the Hunter AIDS Research Team (HART).

Golub divorced Stevens and later married Ruth Ellen Gelman in 1979. Ruth had two children from a prior marriage.

Mark and Ruth have two children. Darah Golub, lives in New York City and serves as Associate Director & Head of Post Production for Jewish Broadcasting Service, and sings in the band Lily & The Parlour Tricks. Ari Golub also lives in New York City and works for Mark43 as a software engineer.

With his brother David, Mark has produced several Broadway plays including The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (Tony Award), Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike (Tony Award), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Tony Award), Best Man (Tony Nomination), and Glengarry Glen Ross with Al Pacino. His production of The Bridges of Madison County starred Kelli O'Hara with an original score by Jason Robert Brown. Golub also enjoys baseball.^{[citation needed]}

References[]

External links[]

• Chavurat Aytz Chayim: Rabbi Mark S. Golub
• Jewish Broadcasting Service Official Website