Ben Gelber
This is Bill Cohen from the Columbus Jewish Historical Society, and it is July 15 (2024). We are at the Hilliard Library. We’re here to interview Ben Gelber for our oral history project.
Interviewer: Ben, why don’t you start by telling us where were you born?
Gelber: I was born in Lexington, Kentucky on October 28, 1956. My dad had taken his first college teaching position at the University of Kentucky.
Interviewer: Your parents’ names?
Gelber: Norman and Judith Gelber. They had only married a couple of years earlier in 1954.
Interviewer: What did your mother and father do?
Gelber: My father was an English professor. Initially he taught at a high school level but quickly moved on to college level teaching as an English professor. My mother received her degree in education as we were growing up and then became essentially a high school teacher, more often substituting during absences, but her background was Political Science. She wound up writing articles and became a columnist for the local newspaper, The Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Her research was ultimately published in the Congressional Record on Electoral College reform back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Interviewer: You were born in Kentucky, but then your family moved to Pennsylvania?
Gelber: Well, yes, we left Kentucky. I was not quite two years old, moved back in with my grandmother, my father’s mother, in New York City, in North Bronx. He was finishing graduate and post graduate work at Columbia University, and, also, I think, to be closer to family, extended family. They all stayed in the New York area. (He) taught at a high school in Fair Lawn, New Jersey and then we moved to what was then East Paterson, now I think Elmwood Park. Then, while looking for a college teaching position which I think came up in 1961 at then East Stroudsburg State College, now East Stroudsburg University. About the time we settled in the Poconos, I essentially had just started kindergarten, but I finished my kindergarten year all the way through senior high school in the East Stroudsburg area school district.
Interviewer: So the Poconos, that’s where your childhood was?
Gelber: So, essentially my entire schooling and my memories are entirely in the Pocono region, which is the northeastern part of Pennsylvania, just west of New Jersey, situated between Allentown and Scranton.
Interviewer: Do you have a Jewish name, or Yiddish name, or Hebrew name?
Gelber: All I know is I was named after my father’s father, my grandfather. His name was Benjamin. In Hebrew that’s Bīnyāmīn. My brother’s name is Daniel. So, it’s the two of us. So, I guess, in a sense, we already had Hebrew names, following the tradition of being named after a recently passed relative.
Interviewer: Do you remember, did you have much of a Jewish upbringing at all, do you remember, as a child?
Gelber: I would say we had a significant Jewish upbringing in that my parents were members of Temple Israel in Stroudsburg. We periodically went to services, High Holidays, occasional Friday night services, temple functions. Both my brother and I were Bar Mitzvahed there, at the temple. My parents actually kept kosher in the home which was a little more challenging away from say New York City and vicinity. I remember they had to rely on a kosher butcher in Scranton to deliver kosher food. Meat and dairy were separated. Decisions had to be made. They generally almost entirely kept kosher outside the home as well. There were obviously some exceptions when it was just not possible. They did tell, when my brother and I were Bar Mitzvahed, as was the tradition, you’re on your own as far as decision making. Obviously, with everything from hanging out with friends, to band trips to my brother was on the football team, it was not feasible in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania. I think, as my parents said, the key, regardless of what we practiced, is just to know what kosher meant, why we kept kosher, why we celebrated the holidays, and then the rest is once you’re of age, you make your own decisions, which is personal.
Interviewer: The synagogue you were a member of, was it Reform, Conservative?
Gelber: At that time, we’re talking 1960s thru the 1980s, before I was formally settled out here in Ohio and working, it was the only synagogue in town, and it was Conservative. Since then, I want to say in the last 10 to 20 years, we’ll just say in this century, a Reform synagogue was added up in the Pocono region, up in the higher elevations, near Mt. Pocono, which I have visited. Thru the 20th century, there was one and only synagogue in our county, Monroe County, Pennsylvania.
Interviewer: I assume it was a very small Jewish community?
Gelber: Yes, very small. I would say probably numbering less than 100 families. We also had folks who visited from New York and Philadelphia who had summer homes, vacation homes so we often, during the summertime, had guests coming to services who we didn’t know, or became friends of different congregation members who would routinely come by Temple Israel during the summer months then we wouldn’t necessarily see them the rest of the year. Again, that’s the nature of a resort community or having a town that’s located in a broader resort area.
Interviewer: As a child, were most of your friends Jewish or was it a mix, or what was it like?
Gelber: I would say most of my friends were not Jewish. We had an average Hebrew School class which, at that time, you attended until your Bar Mitzvah, might have had a half-dozen students of which you may have known, gone to school with half of those in your high school. The other half may have come from a neighboring high school in the county. Yeah, you became friends. We attended events like BBYO Conventions which were often held in larger, there is a little larger Jewish community in Hazleton, Scranton, and Allentown. I remember those were some of the locations during the school year. They were a fun mix of sports and other activities, but just a chance, I think, to widen our perspective and make new friends. I think it was especially helpful because we were probably the smallest segment of the BBYO group coming from, at that time, a relatively small or less populated county in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Interviewer: In high school, any estimate as to what percent of the kids were Jewish?
Gelber: I’d probably say it was one percent, or two percent. Probably, I’ll say two percent, very few Jewish students. There may be one or two more that we didn’t know. If you had, in a typical class of 30, I was either the only Jewish kid or one of maybe two as you went thru the course of your day of half a dozen classes.
Interviewer: What was that like being such a small minority, although I guess that’s about the same percentage of Jews in the general population in the United States, two percent. Can you tell us about that?
Gelber: You were, I was the spokesperson for Jewish holidays. Often if a holiday came up, at least a major Jewish holiday came up, like Chanukah, a teacher, or two, might ask me to say something either in front of the class or just comment on the holiday or holiday celebrations. I had to stay on my game and be able to talk about holidays from a cultural and educational perspective because there were so few Jewish students. There were a handful of Jewish teachers in the high school, but again very few. More often than not, I was on my own. I guess, at the time, we just took that for granted. You knew that, when you played with friends, went out for sports events, that you were one of only a few Jewish kids. It didn’t seem to really matter. I mean it’s not something you consciously thought about. Once in a great while it would come up because someone would bring it up. Rarely was it in a pejorative way, it was usually just by way of comment. I think we also, back in the 60s and 1970s, I mean you took certain things in stride. There wasn’t much focus, to be honest, on concerns over antisemitism even though there was a little bit of that. It was more kind of social comments but nothing that myself or anybody else felt was concerning. I think we had a far different experience than our parents had, they told us that, growing up in the early middle part of the twentieth century, even in an area where there were very few Jewish students that were in the population.
There was a very important event though which I rarely brought up. When we built our home, which I learned because parents tended to shield kids from anything uncomfortable. This one we witnessed directly. When they went to purchase a property to build a home in 1971, they found out, and I think it was after the fact, that no Jews were allowed to purchase property, although it was obviously a private knowledge in that neighborhood. In effect, my parents were the first Jewish family that bought property in this particular section, East Stroudsburg. Frankly, some of this was not uncommon back then. The closest thing to a shocking incident, by way of illustration, was when the foundation was put in, a swastika was painted on the side of the foundation. Today that would be, as we know, a news story, potentially or certainly would be logged. My parents didn’t say much at all. They contacted the builder who was also Jewish, and it was discretely painted over. The next day nothing more was ever said about it. It was only later that a friend of mine down the street was pretty certain who the youngster was. We won’t certainly mention names, but it was a neighborhood kid. There was always that subtle, that reminded me, growing up, that there was always that subtle undercurrent whether it spilled out in an occasional comment. Back in the day, it would be a Jews and money comment or joke, usually nothing much more. That’s why I say kind of a social, old-school prejudice. Your parents told you. Very little was said, just like that’s the way it is.
I remember one youngster, we were young, probably elementary school. This term was heard back then, the term quote on quote “Dirty Jew.” He used it unknowingly. I must have mentioned it to my parents who then did, somehow it got back to his parents, and they had me come down to the house, his house down the street, and told him to apologize and he was chastised for that. That was a signal that was not acceptable. In other words, it wasn’t, which I thought was an important lesson also. We stayed friends, although I haven’t talked to him in a few years. When I go back to visit, I still run into him. There was absolutely nothing personal. He just parroted a phrase, just like and the same thing with. I learned to kind of brush stuff off. I think we all did back then because it wasn’t, at least where I grew up there weren’t any altercations over faith. We certainly heard other prejudice directed toward other minorities. It was part of that time frame. Most folks dealt with it personally. Occasionally you might let a teacher, or a parent know. A lot of it was simply settled on the playground and you went on.
Interviewer: In general, you’re saying that Jews and non-Jews got along pretty well?
Gelber: Absolutely, as I said, any bias was, again, the use of a phrase. I remember the uncle of another youngster came to me and said, “You know, Moses wasn’t Jewish.” He obviously knew I was Jewish. I then explained that he was. You know it was kind of a, he made some kind of smug remark. This is the full extent of anything I ever encountered, just a silly comment which you usually refuted, but it never really devolved beyond that. It could come from a youngster. It could come from an ignorant adult who harbored some prejudice. It was not threatening, I guess is the best way to put it. Outside of one incident of vandalism which was quickly, literally covered over and nothing further was said about that, you had these little reminders that you were a minority. You were told this is life and you deal with it.
Interviewer: Interfaith dating, was that at all an issue your parents taught you?
Gelber: They encouraged dating in the faith, but they didn’t focus on it, I think because there were so few Jewish folks in our friendship circle, or in our school, it just wasn’t realistic to push that. I’ll just say, certainly as far as dating, I think at that point, when your parents still have that kind of influence in high school or into college. They would ask occasionally did you meet a Jewish girl. I was attending Penn State after that. It didn’t come up a whole lot. It was just that subtle reminder that, you know, this would be ideal. That’s as far as it went.
Interviewer: So, you went to Penn State University. Did you study meteorology?
Gelber: I kind of bounced a little bit. I started meteorology. I felt a little bit overwhelmed by the calculus, was drifting in my sophomore year till I met a terrific geography professor, and I explained my concerns, but also my interest in climatology which bridges geography and meteorology. He worked out a program going forward so I wouldn’t have to fear. I fought my way through several calculus courses, did fine in physics and chemistry. I could then move on and not worry about even higher-level courses that were kind of mandatory for meteorology majors as well as engineering majors, as well as pre-med majors. That gave me a little bit of a boost in terms of confidence because I knew I was fine. Again, I did all the mathematical basics, but I also knew my limits which I guess could be a mathematical juggernaut, calculus and limits and integrals. I was essentially fearful that I wouldn’t go beyond the three calculus courses I already had. The next one, I think, was differential equations. Because he was a climatologist, which is a branch of meteorology, he fashioned a program that bridged meteorology, regional geography, climate studies, all the requisite courses, and that was essentially where I was most interested at the time anyway. My Bachelor of Science degree was in geography at Penn State. Then I got a teaching assistantship at Northern Illinois University. Here again, the Geography Department housed the meteorology program. When I got at the graduate level, I had more confidence. All the courses were in meteorology, but again with a nod toward climatology, a branch of meteorology. My Master of Science degree was in meteorology from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, in 1980. Penn State, I graduated in 1978.
Interview: We know you’ve had a stellar career as a weather expert, decades. You knew in college that this was what you wanted to do? Did you know in high school?
Gelber: I knew in third grade. By third grade I was obsessed with weather, which was unusual then, not so much now, because we didn’t have resources. I remember just constantly taking temperature readings. My parents would set up a thermometer outside on the porch or under an awning. I was just absolutely enthralled with everything, especially snow, and snowstorms, and would we have a snow day. I wanted to know when the snow was coming, why certain storms brought more snow or caused the snow to change to rain. We lived in a mountainous area, even though we were in the valley, so I saw some fascinating climatic differences from our elevation around 500 ft. to within 15-20 miles you’re at an elevation of 2,000 ft. I had friends who lived at different elevations. I’m sure all of this played a role in my interest in meteorology because I was living it plus seeing east coast storms including the derechos and hurricanes.
A combination of reasons including a deep-seated fear of lightning which may have played a role in my learning. Maybe if I study lightning, I would be a little less fearful. I use this, by the way, to the present day in talking with parents who have children with lightning phobias. It worked for me, and they said it has worked for them as well, turning it into a science project of sorts and just to mitigate some of the fear. I firmly believe in a healthy fear of lightning because I talk about the statistics and lightning saved me. I say that’s okay because I remember what it was like having a little phobia. So, we can move it to more just a healthy respect of lightning by looking at it from an academic perspective.
Anyway, by third grade, I just watched the Today Show to get a weather map in my head. At some point, I guess it was fourth grade, Mrs. Morton was the teacher. She had me give weather presentations or weather forecasts. That was my first foray into weather presentations. I was already hooked; I think by then. Then it was growing up with backyard weather stations that my father helped me build, beginning a regular set of observations in 1970 in addition to informal snowfall measurements in the late 1960s. All those records were part of NOAA’S database. The National Weather Service in Mt. Holly, New Jersey, the Philadelphia area, has all my handwritten daily records for my hometown of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. They’ve incorporated that because that becomes a way of studying climate change or just being able to look back at storms and events.
Interviewer: I see. I thought for a second that they wanted this just to show how passion about weather could influence a child, teenager, to get into the field. But no, you’re saying it went beyond that. They wanted the records that you kept.
Gelber: Because I kept the records officially following, in accordance with how NOAA keeps records, midnight to midnight temperature precipitations, snowfall, snow depth, so that these numbers could provide averages which become part of the climate data record so that we can say, in fact we can look at my home data, for example, and indicate that winter temperatures have risen an average of three degrees in the last half century, summer temperatures one to two degrees. Snowfall has decreased a little. Precipitation has increased. To answer the question of what happened after I went to college, I convinced my mother, in the name of science, to keep the data going. She reluctantly, she said because she loved me, she was going to continue the records, which was a matter of taking the high and low temperature. Back then you had to go outside and measure it. Now, in later years, a box goes inside the home.
At that point it was wired, now it’s even wireless, to the weather station. You can just push buttons. Back then it was a matter of stepping outside at night and grabbing the high/low temperature, and of course rainfall, reading the rain gauge. Snowfall, there’s a ruler in the ground. She kept the readings for the rest of her life. I enjoyed coming home and taking the readings. I took care of recording the data. Back in the day, either in letter form, or over the phone, I would scribble down the information. She also filled out a form that went to the government every month, which is how it has been done since the 1800s. Now, of course I do it online.
Interviewer: She kept the records going. She kept the information and records going how many years?
Gelber: All the way till she passed in 2010.
Interviewer: How many years would that have been?
Gelber: About 40 years of continuous data. The key word is continuous because you can’t have missing days or months. We figures out a way, if they traveled, a neighbor assisted them. Temperature records or rainfall or snowfall in any given month are useless if you’re missing any days because it throws off the averages. Let’s say you miss a stretch of five days of 90-degree heat, your monthly average is worthless. We worked out quite a system with the help of neighbors and a close friend of mine. The tricky part was, after my mom passed away, my dad developed Alzheimer’s around the same time. The couple next door, who actually helped take care of my parents, continued to maintain the records. I would copy them down, just as I did for my parents, and input the data to the National Weather Service. To continue, I’m forever grateful that they allowed that to happen, or helped maintain the records. A couple of years later, 2012, my son moved into the house and stayed there for about four years. He finished school and worked there. He took over that role. The difficult part was, when he moved back here to central Ohio, and I knew I was going to have to sell the house because I couldn’t maintain my home and my parents’ home and all that entails.
I convinced a friend of mine who conveniently helped me build my first weather shelter. Even as a music professor, he had a similar interest. The fact that he was even able to show me how to build the weather shelter and kept readings while I was doing this, around 1970. He willingly took the station in agreement with the National Weather Service. You had to stay within several miles and a short, a very low change in elevation to allow the records to transfer or allow the station to transfer because you can’t suddenly have a move and go up in elevation or move ten miles away for consistency. As luck would have it, he lived, literally, across a few miles away within tens of feet in terms of elevation. They came out, around the time I sold the house, and took the weather station. Now he mails me the data on a spreadsheet, Dropbox rather, but I continue to input the data. The bottom line is we have an unbroken data record since 1970 for the community.
Interviewer: 54 years.
Gelber: When I go back to visit, ideally in the fall, the National Weather Service is going to give me an award for 50 plus years of volunteer service.
Interviewer: And obviously well deserved. It’s interesting, usually children sometimes carry on the legacy of their parents. In this case, yes, your son carried on your legacy for a while, your friend helped you carry on your legacy, but your mother carried on your legacy for decades. Fascinating, a total family effort and friend effort. So, eventually, after graduating from Penn State and elsewhere, in terms of meteorology, your first job doing weather was?
Gelber: First and only job was here. I guess my first job in the field was a graduate teaching assistant at Northern Illinois University where I covered lab for one semester and then taught Introduction to Meteorology for the next three semesters, left Northern Illinois University in May of 1980. I was still working on my master’s thesis, just completed it at the time that I got the job offer in July of 1980. Even before I graduated, I had begun sending out resumes, of course, to TV stations mostly, because I did a little bit of cable TV on campus at NIU, Northern Illinois University, because they needed somebody to fill in. It was a rotation of students who anchored the news, weather, and sports. I was incredibly nervous. I owned one suit and would go over there to the TV studio a half hour or so before the news, before or after I ate in the cafeteria, and did a short weather presentation with hand-drawn maps, of course. If that doesn’t happen, the rest of this probably doesn’t happen either. It was just enough to get a look from several TV stations. I had two job offers, one in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and one with WCMH-TV, now NBC 4 in Columbus. I decided that this was, I was told even by the person who offered me the job that you would have more weather casts which would allow you to develop faster and see if this was what you wanted to do.
Remember, I was very shy as a youngster. I was very nervous about doing a job where I would be this fearful and have my stomach in knots on a daily basis. I did not think this would necessarily work out, but I figured there’s a reason that I forged ahead because, even when I was in high school, I was pointing to a U.S. map and creating weather reports as much as sportscasters called games when they were youngsters, even if they made up all the information. In hindsight you can see the seeds of all this. I did some radio weathercasts off teletype in the 1970s at East Stroudsburg State College. Here again, this was important. His family had been members of the temple and were friends of my parents, and he was a local DJ for both the AM radio station and for the start-up FM station at the college. It was a bit of a family connection, but we hit it off and he would let me hang out at the radio station and then put me on the air doing weather broadcasts, simple stuff. Here again, he’s now in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and we’re still in touch by email after all these decades. There are a number of things along the way, but I also, I really enjoyed all aspects of communication and teaching weather, as I found out once I went to grad school. I figured somewhere in the mix, that’s where my career was headed. I certainly didn’t know the details.
Interviewer: When you were in the third or fourth grade you were thinking not just about meteorology itself but as the years went by you started to see that presenting the weather forecast could be part of the job. Not necessarily, you could teach. Your final job could have been teaching Meteorology.
Gelber: Or working for the National Weather Service.
Interviewer: Not necessarily presenting, but as the years went by, you saw doing a little radio, a little TV, you saw that presentation could be rewarding.
Gelber: I found out, to my surprise, as shy as I was, I could get up in front of an audience, whether it was in the classroom or at an assembly. In a semi-related manner, I participated in a talent show. I created a series of piano solos. I was already involved with high school band. I realized I could get on stage with great anxiety and play piano which led to the music ensemble I formed in 2010. Again, everything seems to make sense looking back, but you realize that you have, all of us do I guess, you realize you had certain abiding interests that had really taken hold. It’s still incumbent upon all of us to make the most of these desires, making them come to fruition.
Interviewer: You moved to Columbus in mid 1980 to take the job at Channel 4 as a weather forecaster. Tell us about those first decades or two here in Columbus. What was that like?
Gelber: Very challenging because we didn’t have the technology. We didn’t have the graphics. In fact, I just placed on Facebook some video, under Benjamin Gelber. Feel free to see how we did the weather back then. As I explained, when we ad-libbed on the air just a few nights ago, it was dry erase markers and magnetic symbols, kind of like, when I was growing up, they were often called Colorforms, the stick-on suns.
Interviewer: You physically put those on to a physical board?
Gelber: On a porcelain map which was made of plexiglass. You wiped it off. At least the magic marker drawings of fronts to update frontal positions. I remember placing temperature magnets, numerical magnets to reflect temperature, and that’s how weather was done. We had a few very primitive graphics developed including a radar drop-feed from the National Weather Service when it was in Columbus, at Port Columbus International Airport. It was a drop-feed. We had a feed so we could put up a single drop black and white radar image which only told you there was a blob of something before we had computerized radar imagery.
That came a few years later, in the early 80s. We had animated satellite views which initially were just me tacking up a satellite picture, a physical picture off a facsimile machine, on the wall, and shooting it on an easel, and then these hand-drawn maps and a couple simple moves. I remember, in the early 80s, when chrome key became a thing, we were still learning how to maneuver between a hard map and then over to a green wall projection. At least I got to see the beginnings of everything that we do now. It was nothing compared to the computer graphics, and imagery, and Doppler radar, all the things we take for granted today.
Interviewer: The National Weather Service issues its own weather forecast. You could just be on TV and, basically, read that. Some people might think, well that’s what you do, but do you also add to it or maybe even replace it with your own prediction?
Gelber: It’s always my own prediction, always has been. What I tell folks is the National Weather Service is the data source for all of us. Aside from any private spot issue, phone-in, or now email in rainfall data or snowfall data, we are all using the same data. How it’s packaged depends on the vendor. There are forecasting firms that provide information, and now on cable. The whole thrill of my job is figuring out the weather and deciding how to tell a weather story for my viewers of which there is a lot of variation between say Mansfield and Piketon, Dayton and Zanesville, or within those boundaries for our viewing area. I enjoy thoroughly analyzing all the data from the National Weather Service or, broadly, NOAA.
Interviewer: When you say NOAA, you mean the National?
Gelber: NOAA for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s the branch of government which houses all these other, which houses the National Weather Service, The Climate Predication Center for long-range, and a host of other branches of atmospheric sciences. The key is that it’s all NOAA or National Weather Service data. The interpretation, which you certainly can use or parrot the National Weather Service forecast, but to me the fun of it is interpreting the data which invariably will be very close to the local forecast. Maybe I’m calling for a little more or a little less snow or different timing on rain, snow changeover.
I’m also trying to fit multiple counties which overlap different National Weather Service offices. It’s not just one site anyway. It’s really, you’d have to look at multiple National Weather Service sites to cover this forecasting, a forecast area. The bottom line is that from day one I’ve always made my own forecasts interpreting the official data.
Interviewer: Apart from weather, in the 44 years you started at Channel 4 and you’re still here, well-known throughout the community. Apart from that, tell us about your life in Columbus.
Gelber: It’s been a very positive experience, the first few years, just finding my way in the world post college and making friends, taking care of an apartment, finding a car. I was still using a car that was bequeathed to me by my parents when they got something else because I didn’t have the money, really, for much. Just finding my way on my own that we all I guess have to do socially, professionally.
I mentioned, sort of where we started, I made the rounds to different synagogues just to see what the differences were. I went to Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox services in Columbus because I only knew the Conservative small synagogue in the Poconos, just to see what it was like. I met different rabbis and cantors. Sometimes I was invited by a family to attend Service. In fact, the first Service I went to was a Conservative Service at Tifereth Israel by the family whose cousin was my home room teacher in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Again, the small world connection. We are still good friends to this day. It seemed like instantly there was that connection, but also, I was being invited to other synagogues or temples, but I just was curious.
I’m comfortable with almost anything. I just don’t have the knowledge of Hebrew to keep up with an Orthodox service. Being honest, I felt I had to follow a Reform or Conservative service just to understand what was being said. I did well in Hebrew School, but I did not have that kind of rigorous academic training. So, yeah, that’s pretty much how I handle it to this day, occasionally going to a synagogue. The problem is working the job that I do. It’s difficult, often either late on Fridays, or by the time I get out at the end of the day, it can be kind of exhausting, so I don’t attend probably as often as I like to say I do.
Interviewer: You were a member of Beth Tikvah?
Gelber: I have been a member, not presently. I would say, when I attend services, it’s almost always at Beth Tikvah. Partly because it’s a proximity both to Hilliard where I live and to the station which is just down the street on Olentangy River Road.
Interviewer: You’re living in Hilliard, the whole 44 years have you been here?
Gelber: Started I was in Columbus. We moved to Hilliard in 1985 so, essentially, the bulk of the time has been in Hilliard.
Interviewer: What’s that been like?
Gelber: It’s a great community. Working as a meteorologist on NBC 4, you’re involved with community events across the entire region. By that I mean fairs, school visits, and even stories about folks doing positive work in each of their communities as relates to the story that I’ve chosen to do as part of the news and weather. Hilliard has been a great experience. All three boys went through the Hilliard School District, and we were very happy with all aspects, including the teachers I’ve met along the way, coaches, music staff, the hang of which activities the boys were involved in.
Interviewer: Your three boys, very briefly, what’s their names? What are they doing now?
Gelber: Justin, born in August 1987, he works in IT. He’s now, he works locally although the office closed during the pandemic, but he does a lot of his work remotely. He’s fortunate because he gets to travel, to set up call centers, and do computer work around the country and around the world. He’s been to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, The Philippines, Costa Rica, and Mexico. Talk about how fortunate it is to be able to travel for this job and as well as various locations wherever the company has either call centers or they’re opening a new office, closing another. What I found was most interesting was when he went to, he was in Waco, Texas which is where the company is centered after the February 2021 massive ice and snowstorm in Texas. They were actually hit twice. He helped set up links to FEMA. In other words, he was part of the, they were subcontracted to provide ways to reach for federal assistance. There was a weather connection that was unexpected. Then there’s the middle son, Joshua, lives with his wife in Glendale. He’s the closest to media. He went to, he’s an OU graduate in E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. His interest was in video production, primarily. His jobs, including his present job, is mostly involved with video production, currently producing video for a medical college in Phoenix. Then the youngest, Jordan, Joshua was born in 1991, Jordan in 1993, works for a firm in Worthington and lives, actually very close to us, not quite to Mill Run, but around the edge of Hilliard and Columbus. He’s kind of down the street. He seems to enjoy staying here so we see him probably the most of the three by far.
Interviewer: Any other relatives you can tell us about?
Gelber: Unfortunately, given my age, a lot of the aunts and uncles and grandparents have passed. Some had, to one degree or another, had an influence on, aside from family gatherings. I’m named after my grandfather. Well, a nice story, my parents couldn’t afford a piano. Now we’re back in elementary school. I had an interest in piano, tinkering around in either a friend’s home or at school and showed some aptitude apparently. There was no money for a piano. My Aunt Frieda, told my parents, my mother related the story. He’s named after his grandfather, Benjamin, who, in addition to having a candy store in the Bronx, played the piano in a theatre for silent movies. Therefore, he automatically must have inherited that talent, so I’m going to buy him a piano, and my parents will then enforce piano lessons starting at the age of 8, and the rest is history. She bought, I believe, a $500 or $600 Wurlitzer upright piano. So piano lessons were begun reluctantly. By the time I was finished, somewhere in my junior or senior year of high school, again, they had to twist my arm. The piano teacher was ready to give up on me because I wasn’t practicing. I had other things I liked to do, sports. Yeah, I was a kid, but the high school band director kind of twisted my arm and got me involved in 10th grade with the East Stroudsburg Senior High Band, pitch percussion, because they needed a xylophone, marimba. They figured, well you play the piano, so… Anyway, the piano skills transferred and continued through the senior band. I did play a little piano in the jazz band, but it was mostly pitched percussion, or just percussion in the marching band. Anyway, apart from my Aunt Frieda making that connection, I don’t know that we would have had a piano, certainly not at a young enough age to get the ball rolling, I mean to get started on playing piano, lessons, and reading music, and everything that has transpired since.
Interviewer: That early piano training has been the spark for you to form your own band here, in Columbus, operating for more than a decade now. A lot of it is Jewish music, Hebrew music, band music, tell us about that.
Gelber: At some point, even when I was sitting in services, often bored, on Friday evenings, the only thing that caught my interest, because everything felt repetitive and I was a good reader, and I read the prayer book from one end to the other, was the music. I noticed a few melodies I looked forward to hearing. I think we all know that music can reach the heart and make the words, our prayers more meaningful, the prayers more meaningful. Nothing unusual about that. I didn’t really think much about that other than I did it, even though it was difficult. I did enjoy, of course I had to sing my Bar Mitzvah. Here again, I’d become intimately familiar with the Conservative melodies, mostly minor melodic, and I tinkered around with some of the melodies on the piano. That’s that. Then I came here, and I found there’s piano at Channel 4. So, I continued to, I didn’t have one at home, but I continued to take breaks, every once in a while, and try it out, I mean not just Jewish melodies, whatever I wanted to play. I kept those, I just had an innate interest in several melodies in particular. Also, when I came here, the rabbi actually had me lead services at Hillel at Ohio State on several occasions. I got to, much as I had done at Northern Illinois University as a grad student, so I got to be rabbi for the evening and work my way through services. I remember telling a few friends at that time that I had an interest. For some reason, even it comes out in dreams, where I felt very, thoroughly enjoyed singing through some melodies. I don’t know why that stuck with me, but obviously as I go through adulthood. Then at some point, the early 2,000s, early aughts or whatever they’re called, I remember we didn’t have a reporter to go to Kristallnacht commemoration at the church on College Avenue. I don’t know if that rings a bell.
Interviewer: Trinity church right next to the university?
Gelber: Yes, Trinity (Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital University). There’s some kind of, anyway, I finished the weather cast, I said I’ll tag along with the photographer so I could at least write up a few lines. This is somewhere between 2005 and 2008, roughly 20 years ago. I was enthralled by a violinist who played some soulful music which I didn’t necessarily recognize, sounding much like the melody in “Schindler’s List.” Something clicked in me again. It would be interesting to create a program of melodies such as this because there’s intrinsic beauty in these melodies. That recaptured thoughts I had decades earlier that I really enjoyed several melodies and continued to play around a little bit on the piano with them but didn’t give it much thought. Then I met with, I finally decided, I thought finally why don’t I take a step forward. I met with a couple friends in the Jewish community, it might have been through YJC.
Interviewer: Young Jewish Professionals?
Gelber: Yes YJP, correct, because I’d attended a few events. I wound up meeting with a local cantor, who I don’t believe is still here, and a gentleman at Beth Tikvah who has since joined our group, John Stefano, who’s a cantorial soloist. Then he was the chairman of the Theater/Dance Department at Otterbein. Three of us, I had a list of several songs. They kind of sang and I was playing along. I was just trying to see if there was something to this. I just couldn’t figure out how to do this. Separately, I talked to someone I met at, it had to be OSU Hillel, who was a student rabbi. Anyway, she had some, that was her, she had some training. I had several meetings with folks in the Jewish community about 20 years ago, who were very positive. The third key element was meeting a former director, I believe he was secondary position of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. I can’t remember his last name. His first name is Gary, Gary Sheldon. He worked with the CSO as the associate director in the 1980s. I met him. I was doing a completely separate story at the Fairfield County Fair. He conducted the music program every year till recently. He was the artistic director of the Lancaster Festival. I think I told Gary about, we were just talking, I mean I was just collecting videos and sound bites. I don’t know why I said anything. I threw that out. He encouraged me to follow through and keep him posted. There were several lines, without even getting specific, several lines of encouragement that developed along the way, just enough for me to continue to tinker on the piano, again a relatively handful of melodies.
Finally, at some point, I began to put out feelers in 2009-10, that time frame, for instrumentalists, not knowing anybody beyond a couple of contacts and they weren’t. John Stefano was busy with teaching and the other young lady had moved on, I think, to California by then. There wasn’t anybody I had been in contact with. Then, just miraculously, things started to come together. A colleague that worked for me got in touch with a violinist in the Hilliard School District who was not Jewish, but very fascinated with Jewish culture and music. We hooked up. Then there was a young lady that worked at Burger King across the street from the station. I casually mentioned I was working on a music project. She said I’m a music major. One thing led to another. She was a clarinetist. She became the clarinetist the first few years. I sent an email to OSU Hillel. I got one response, but it turned out that would become our lead vocalist for many years. This program doesn’t get launched without any of them. At Beth Tikvah there was a keyboardist who was doing just some old-time music. I chatted with him. He became the second keyboardist and then a few other.
This all came together around 2009-10 to the point where we started to meet, have rehearsals, and our first program was in May of 2010 at OSU Hillel. It was a little tentative, but we made it. Shortly thereafter, I put out feelers. We were invited to play at Wexner Heritage Village. We did a Memorial Day weekend concert. A few of the clips are on YouTube, which in hindsight, we did, I thought, pretty well because we were definitely more cohesive. Again, it’s a credit to the talent of the musicians. By then I created a program of about 15 melodies which, of course, has grown since, but the essence of the program is the same today. It’s broken into parts, liturgical melodies that you usually hear at Friday night services with a few exceptions, folk melodies which have maybe a Yiddish flavor certainly in terms of lyrics, Jewish American song book which would include melodies from Fiddler on the Roof, also some Klezmer melodies which also are Jewish American composers. That was the program then and that’s the program now, with John Stefano’s help. He’s a cantorial soloist at Beth Tikvah. We brought in Marsha Huber, (wife of) Rabbi Gary Huber rabbi at Beth Tikvah. She joined. Others have come and gone, either moved out of the area or their work schedules. That’s not so important. Folks have volunteered their time, and other instrumentalists have joined in at different times to make our schedules. Here we are. We put out a digital album in 2015 and then revisited that several years later. Of course, that’s now on line plus put the whole thing on YouTube, you know, all the people do today.
In 2021, during the pandemic, I created a whole concert because we couldn’t perform. There’s one hour and six minutes where we edited all the melodies that we recorded in the studio and then we put matching video, to some degree or another, such that we could play this whole concert that NBC4 livestreamed. Rabbi Rick Kellner joined me at the end with a little Q and A, and I introduced each group of melodies. Then we could send out that YouTube to folks who would never be able to attend the concert, or when we perform at The James, or places where we can make it available for any number of circumstances, so they kind of see a concert or edit a concert without having to travel or attend.
Interviewer: So, you performed at Jewish venues like Wexner Heritage Village, synagogues, Hillel, also out in the general community, The James Cancer Hospital?
Gelber: Yes, we performed a Chanukah concert at The James, regular Chanukah concerts now at the Bexley Public Library. We performed at Upper Arlington Public Library, a few churches that had interfaith programs and they were fascinated with the music, certainly senior communities. We’ve had groups of members through Jewish Family services, Café Europa, Holocaust survivors’ community of which a few, whether they’re Holocaust survivors or senior communities, I’ve done stories with, including for Veterans’ Day, some Jewish veterans, the sculptor Alfred Tibor. All arose from the concert program and then chance meetings or recommended meetings from staff that led to NBC4 community stories. If I didn’t have this group, I don’t get the opportunity to meet folks to do these stories. Most recently, now 104-year-old, former NASA scientist who attended a concert and then I met him separately and assembled his story. So many things have bridged. Of course, meeting Alfred Tibor was a pleasure. I met him several times doing a story with him. So the concerts sometimes lead to some NBC4 stories, both on air and online. Yeah, the concerts have been at various venues, in addition to Conservative and Reform synagogues and senior communities. My original goal, my dad had developed early Alzheimer’s, and I met Barbra Streisand’s half-sister who was visiting Wexner Heritage Village. Her mother, I believe, had Alzheimer’s. We talked about the importance of music for Alzheimer’s patients and memory care patients. So, I have multiple things going on here, both to reach out to honor my parents, to reach out for memory care patients, to make the music portable for senior communities. In many places we played, I talked afterwards. You’ve seen, it’s a fun program. I don’t want it to be too stoic or too stolid, or whatever, you’ve seen it, interactive and fun. Also, we played at colleges. At Ohio State we played at the Faculty Club. At Ohio Wesleyan we’ve done several concerts including in honor of a student who lost two family members at the Tree of Life Synagogue, in that horrible tragedy. She’s an alumna. The chaplain asked us to perform in honor of her family. There are all kinds, or any number of opportunities to perform the program, where there wasn’t something like this, at least here in central Ohio, not to mention for holocaust survivors.
Interviewer: Your weather forecasting, your meteorological work on TV brings you right out into people’s living rooms. Your music has brought you out into the Jewish community and the general community. It’s mid 2024 and the last year or two we’ve seen antisemitism rising in the United States and in other places around the world. I just wonder what your assessment is of that situation, whether or not you felt it personally, or not. What’s your take on all this?
Gelber: It’s an interesting question because I remember, early on, my thinking was solely making Jewish music accessible. We play for audiences that are not primarily of the Jewish faith as a way of presenting music and Jewish culture in a manner that they have not experienced before. We get great positive feedback about the music. Many of the melodies obviously have not been heard, especially outside the folk music realm. I don’t think I gave it, antisemitism in say 2010 when we started, any thought whatsoever. I remember thinking back on discussions I had with my parents. Obviously these conversations would come up in almost all Jewish households, ever reassuring my parents that’s the old days. I thought about those conversations in the last couple years. In other words, outside of an occasional silly remark meant as a joke, my parents agreed, the prejudice as far as country clubs and buying into certain neighborhoods, I’m surprised, still existed but was more in the past. We have evolved because we felt more mainstream, even at two percent, and of course interfaith marriages are more acceptance. Outside of any extreme, there are far extreme, it just wasn’t top of mind. We felt we had overcome the past.
Then the last few years happened. Obviously I’m speaking just for myself, I was absolutely shocked to see this level of antisemitism come to the fore. I’m not naïve. I’ve not dealt with it personally. Outside of one letter decades ago that repeated the word Jew and weather or doing the weather, you’re out there, out in public, whether it’s central Ohio, all around the region, rural, urban communities, I’ve had no, I’ve had only positive comments about folks who recognize that I’m Jewish, nothing, even better than I recall going through my school-age years. I’m certainly susceptible to feedback. Maybe that led me to think all is good outside of some fringe thinking. To be clear, this is interesting. Of course, I was a little concerned about presenting my program as Jewish music on-air. The station has covered community concerts, including for Holocaust survivors, including at The James, including for seniors routinely and has mentioned, the reportage has mentioned that Ben and his group perform Jewish music. To date, as of today, I’ve yet to receive anything but positive feedback which I consider very encouraging. On social media, it has been, as of today, 100 percent complimentary or nothing of concern.
Of course, in the back of my mind, you always wonder is this too much or how is it being perceived. I’m obviously cognizant of everything else going on in this country and around the world. It is obviously very difficult to process. You almost want to say well your parents were right. While something may be dormant, the underlying prejudices are still there. History obviously shows that they can crop up during trying times, difficult periods politically or geo-politically. I’ve had plenty of discussions with some friends and colleagues at work. You’re just not sure what to think because I did not see this coming. While I have not been impacted personally, fortunately, which obviously is a good sign, I can’t ignore what I see on the TV screen or in print. It’s been very upsetting at times too.
Interviewer: You mentioned a grandfather, or two. Tell us how far back can you go in terms of family.
Gelber: Both sides of the family, grandparents came from an area known as Galicia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Say around the turn of the century, in the early 20th century family members immigrated to the United States, to New York City, and then settled in New York City. Some family members actually settled in Montreal and there are probably a few other locations. We don’t have that history anymore.
Interviewer: They would come through Ellis Island?
Gelber: They all came through Ellis Island. They hadn’t been here prior to the 20th century. I’ve got some history notes at home that I took from my parents, should have followed up more, but you don’t think about this till after everyone is gone. The grandparents grew up in rural areas in Galicia, not too far from a town in Germany known as Lembeck, but also near Lvov or Lviv. At one time it was Lvov, now it’s Lviv. It would be in present day northwest Ukraine. The borders were fluid. I remember my aunt referring to the Hapsburg Empire, or the Hapsburg rulers. They grew up in that heavily Jewish portion of Eastern Europe, present day Poland, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, now Austria and Germany.
Interviewer: Do you know what any of them did?
Gelber: That’s a good question. Not really. My grandmother on my father’s side, my mother talked about some farming. I also know my mother’s side, her father’s father was rather scholarly but never, I have to check my notes, never much about what they did. Nothing, in particular, until they came to the United States. I know whatever they did once they got here but not prior.
Interviewer: Did one of them own a candy store?
Gelber: Yeah, my father’s father, who I’m named after, ran a candy store on Webster Avenue in the Bronx. He played piano in movie theaters that had silent movies. He was also a Precinct Captain for the Democratic party somewhere in the 1920s and 1930s. My grandmother was a homemaker. On the other side of the family, again grandmother was a homemaker. My grandfather, I believe, he worked in business. It might have been textile business, but sadly I don’t remember all the details. It was middle-class upbringings on both sides of the family focused on education. Financially, times were difficult. That was my sense during childhood, meeting extended family. One of my aunts traveled a great deal, on my father’s side. They were very, it was a very lively family life. We would meet aunts and uncles obviously.
On my father’s side, one of his brothers, everybody was in the military in WWII. My father was U.S. Army Air Corps. His brother, my uncle Lewis recently passed away, who I brought here his final years. My father died at 99, my uncle, age 97. I brought them both here in their final years. Uncle Lewis, when he went into the army, interestingly, was sent to Pearl Harbor to repair radar units destroyed after December 7th. He was an electrical engineer. We would talk about this when I brought him here. I learned a lot more. I have some of that history at home. There is an indirect science, I mean he was fascinated with radar components and all that. My father’s youngest brother, he was in the army. My father’s youngest brother was in the Korean War and then taught at a military school, ultimately settled in Columbia, South Carolina. The last time we saw him, he and my aunt, was in Orlando, Florida. He’s buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Sidney Gelber.
Interviewer: Can we wrap up this interview with you I wonder if we can talk about the role Judaism has played in your life. Obviously, you are who you are today because of many different factors, but Judaism is one small or larger part. What would you tell us about the role, who you are today?
Gelber: I think, for me, it gives me a sense of purpose, to lead by example because I think that was part of the inculcation in Hebrew School even though you forget a lot of the customs and ceremonies that you studied. There was always that sense, it was also generational, that you lead by example. I jokingly, I talked to younger folks. I said we were told the mantra was make something of yourself. To that extent, it meant, you know, a focus on education, academic achievement. Regardless of how you proceeded, the most important thing was to be successful. That was the cultural message which you can’t separate ever I don’t think. Judaism, you have the cultural and the religious. The religious standpoint is everything from lead by example to now I think it’s to repair the world. I don’t remember hearing tikkun Olam. I just remember it was more about, of course it involved the Ten Commandments, but you’re a representative of the Jewish faith. Also, as you go out in the world, almost to the point that you feel like an ambassador of sorts when you’re out in the community, knowing that you’re going to be asked about customs and ceremonies and/or history, as I have been, or speaking engagements, whatever the case may be. All of these things branch from the Jewish experience. Sensitivity to others because you’ve experienced even a modicum of prejudice, that makes you more inclined, I think, to be sensitive to both your own thoughts and feelings but helping others.
I guess another example, there was an African American student, I was good friends with him in high school. He ran into some, just some background noise about playing tennis, but I made sure that he and I, we played at college courts, there were some subtle things even back then in the late 60s and 1970s. I think that strengthened our friendship. We both felt we had a little something to prove, even though it was nothing overt. I think that’s part of it too, also being open to other people’s challenges. I think that’s very Judaic. That’s one of my takeaways, and then ultimately giving back to the community, at some level, was part of the music program and of course it’s Jewish music to begin with. Feeling not just doing something because I really enjoy the music as you enjoy performing, but I feel a responsibility to perform and to reach out to the Jewish community, and the community at large with Jewish music. We talk about the history and the culture in the programs, not just to sit down, as you know, because I want others to share, and I feel that’s my responsibility. I think that’s also very Judaic too in terms of helping others understand more about the history and the culture.
Interviewer: With that, we’ll end our interview with Ben Gelber. This is Bill Cohen with the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.
Transcribed by Rose Luttinger